


Midnight at the Hanging Tree

by hapakitsune



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Social Network (2010)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Suicide Attempt, Surgery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:17:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Erica's name is called at the Reaping, she never dreamed that she would become the face of a secret revolution brewing in the heart of Panem</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight at the Hanging Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [thesocialbbang](thesocialbbang.livejournal.com). Full notes and links to art can be found [here](http://hapakitsune.livejournal.com/).

The morning of the Reaping starts the same as every other. 

Erica wakes early and has to slip out of bed to keep from waking Grace and Henry, who are curled up into each other like beans in a pod. She washes her face, and braids her long hair so that it falls in a thick plait down her right shoulder before pulling on her clothes. It's a fresh, crisp spring morning, but Erica takes no pleasure in the clear, beautiful sky as she strides out of her house and towards the forest. Hannah is lurking by the fence, looking freshly scrubbed and even neater than usual. Erica isn't sure why she's there; Hannah has never come hunting with Erica before, preferring instead just to buy the spoils from Erica's trips into the woods.

"Hi," Hannah says, straightening up. "I thought – I mean, I wanted to see you today." She shrugs a little, smiling self-consciously. 

Erica eyes her for a moment, taking in the red eyes and the way Hannah's hands are shaking slightly. Their friendship has always been a constant source of bemusement to Erica, who never understood why a girl from the rich part of town, one who has probably never known what it feels like to be starving or desperate, would want to befriend the quiet girl from the outer district, even if Erica always had been well-liked and had been taken in as a pet project by a good number of people after the accident. But Hannah had decided one day that Erica was her friend, and Erica had never tried to shake her. 

"All right," Erica says. "You have to be quiet, though, all right?" 

"Sure," Hannah says, nodding eagerly. Erica tries not to smile as she holds the fence’s wires apart so Hannah can wriggle through, looking completely incongruous in her clean linen trousers and shirt. Erica follows her through and beckons Hannah to follow her into the trees. She retrieves her bow from its hiding spot near the edge of the woods and tests its strength before nodding to Hannah.

They walk for about fifteen minutes in total silence before Erica finally asks, "Is this because of the Reaping?"

Hannah sighs. "I know it's silly."

"It's not," Erica says. The forest is unusually quiet today, almost as if the animals had sensed the pall hanging over District 12. "This is the first night in a week that Grace hasn't had a nightmare."

"She's only ten," says Hannah, eyebrows coming together. "Her name isn't even in there yet."

Erica shrugs. She has always done her best to keep Grace and Henry from watching the Games, but last year they had insisted that they were old enough. Henry had become even quieter and almost _angry_ , which worries Erica and their mother to no end, and Grace had started having nightmares. Erica has taken to sleeping in her mother's bed with Grace and Henry while her mother takes Erica's cot so that she can be there if Grace wakes in the night, to remind her that it’s just a dream.

“I started having my first nightmares about the games when I was nine,” Erica says.

There is still no sign of any movement in the trees, so Erica pulls out the burlap sack from her pocket to try to harvest some berries or herbs to bring back to town. There aren't many this time of year, but there are enough that she thinks she might be able to get a good price from the Moskovitzes if she haggles. 

“What would you do if your name is pulled?” asks Hannah, pulling a berry from the bush and popping it in her mouth. Her teeth turn red as she chews, and Erica makes a face. 

“I’d go,” Erica says after a moment. “I wouldn’t have a choice, would I?” For a moment, she thinks she sees something moving in the grass ahead, and she lifts her bow. But she loses sight of whatever animal it is, and she lowers her bow again. She runs her hand along the smooth wood contemplatively, fingers catching on each familiar scratch and bump. “I would do my best to get home safely.”

“Do you think you could kill someone?” Hannah nods to the bow. “You hunt.”

Erica bites her lip. “I don’t know.” She looks up at Hannah. “It’s different, hunting for food. I know that if I don’t, Grace and Henry and my mother will starve. But – I don’t know that I could kill someone like me. They’re forced into it, too.” She laughs a little. “I’d be a terrible tribute, wouldn’t I?”

“We only have two more years,” Hannah says comfortingly. “Then we’ll be out.”

Instead of answering, Erica shoots at a flash of grey fur in the grass ahead of them, trying not to be angry. Her name is in thirty-six times; Hannah's is only in there once. 

"I think you hit something," Hannah says excitedly, scurrying forward a few steps. "Oh, it's a rabbit!"

Erica comes up beside her and looks down at the rabbit. It's still alive, just barely, its breaths coming quick and shallow as it strains against the arrow in its side. She kneels down and pulls out her hunting knife to slit its throat. Hannah lets out a tiny squeaking sound and looks away. 

They return to town with the rabbit and Erica's sack of berries. Hannah gives Erica a quick kiss on the cheek, a surprising gesture of affection coming from her, and says, "I'll find you at the Reaping."

Erica nods and walks into town as Hannah returns to the mayor's house, where her older sister Tori is waiting outside. Tori waves at Erica before pulling Hannah inside the house, no doubt clucking at the new dirt stains on Hannah’s clothing. Erica smiles and turns to go to the bakery. 

Mrs. Moskovitz is behind the counter inside, her oldest son Dustin standing beside her. Erica nods to Dustin, who she knows mostly from class, and says, "I have berries to sell."

Mrs. Moskovitz beams at Erica in that delighted, friendly way she has and says, "I was hoping we would see you today, Erica! Let me see what you have."

Erica hands over the sack and rubs her stained hands self-consciously against her trousers. Dustin is watching her, mouth turned down slightly, and she feels strangely underdressed even though she visits the bakery nearly every day and sees Dustin in school. They’ve never talked much, just said passing hellos and occasionally worked together in class, but for the most part they stay in their own parts of town. It’s too bad; Erica has always thought they could be friends, if they had grown up closer together.

"Is the rabbit for sale also?" Mrs. Moskovitz asks, eyeing the small animal slung over her shoulder. "It's a nice-sized one."

"What will you give me in exchange?" Erica asks, leaning against the counter. 

"I can pay you fifty for the whole," Mrs. Moskovitz says, which is far more than Erica's haul is worth, and they both know it. "And if the twins want to come by, they can each have a piece of the pies I'll be making with these berries."

"Deal," Erica says, and she reaches across the counter to shake hands. Mrs. Moskovitz disappears into the back to get the money, and Erica is left looking at Dustin, who is watching her again. 

"What will you eat if you give us the rabbit?" he asks abruptly. 

"We'll figure something out," Erica says. "We'll go to Amy's."

"You need more than that, you'll need breakfast too." Dustin rummages out four meat buns and wraps them up quickly before putting them in a paper bag with a loaf of bread. He thrusts it across the counter to her. "Here."

"I can't take that," Erica protests. "Your mother is already paying me more than this is worth –"

"Take it," Dustin insists. "She won't mind."

"Dustin –"

He gives her a look that's so pleading and hopeful that she finds herself reaching for the bag before she even realizes it. "Fine," she says, thrusting the bag underneath her arm. "I'll find a way to pay you back."

"You don't need to," Dustin says. "It's a gift."

"Dustin –"

"Well, here we go," Mrs. Moskovitz says, coming out of the back. She sets a coin purse on the counter and holds out a basket for the rabbit. Erica doesn't miss her eyes lighting on the paper bag beneath Erica's arm, but Mrs. Moskovitz doesn't comment. Erica takes the coins and thanks them before hurrying from the bakery. 

It's only two hours past dawn, but town is already fully in gear readying for the Reaping. Erica can see Peacekeepers in the town center and is suddenly grateful she already sold the rabbit. If they knew she had been sneaking out into the woods – if they knew she had been _hunting_ – she would have more than the Games to worry about. 

She jogs back to her house and lets herself inside as quietly as she can. It turns out not to be needed; Grace and Henry are awake, though both look rather sleepy, and her mother is busy trying to comb the twins' unruly curly hair into something resembling order. 

"Erica," her mother says in relief. "Good. You need to wash and get ready."

"All right," Erica says. She sets the bag down on the table and beams at her siblings. "I have breakfast." 

Grace and Henry fall on the meat buns like ravenous muttations, and Erica smiles as she goes to wash off the blood and dirt from the forest. She undoes her plait to run a brush through it as she heads back into the bedroom, but then she has to stop and just stare. 

Lying on her bed is a beautiful dress in a shade of blue that matches Erica's eye color nearly exactly. Erica sits down on the edge of the bed and strokes her fingers over the fabric. She recognizes her mother's work easily, notes the neat stitches and how the dress is designed to hide the scars on Erica's arms and chest. It’s been ages since her mother has made anything, and even longer since she made anything more complicated than an apron. Erica swallows, and imagines what her father would have said if he could have seen the dress.

She puts the dress on and leaves her long hair loose so that it falls around her face. Her mother has never made her a dress for a Reaping before, though she has always insisted that Erica look her best, and it’s – comforting to have her mother’s handiwork so close to her heart. Erica strokes her hands down the skirt just once, then returns to the kitchen to eat her own bun. 

"You look pretty," Grace says when Erica sits down next to her. She twists a long strand of Erica's hair between her fingers, and Erica lets her play with her hair while she eats the last bun. 

"Are you dressed up for the cameras?" Henry asks. He has crumbs all around his mouth, and Erica reflexively reaches across to wipe them away. He winces and twists away. "I don't want to look nice."

"I know," Erica says as their mother flinches, looking around as though a Peacekeeper will burst through the door at any moment. "But could you pretend, just for today?" Henry still looks mutinous until Erica adds, "Please, Henry."

"Fine," he says grumpily. "But I won't like it."

"I wouldn't expect you to." Erica finishes her bun and wishes they had more. She has to save the bread for dinner, no matter how tempting it looks. "But you can get a pie from the bakery if you're good today."

Henry's eyes light up at that, and Erica has to raise her hand to her mouth to hide her smile. 

She carries Henry to the Reaping, even though both of the twins are really getting too old for that, and gives him a kiss before turning to Grace and saying, "Make sure he behaves himself, all right?"

Graces nods. Erica hugs her and then hugs her mother impulsively. Her mother hugs back, seeming surprised, but says, "See you after."

Erica passes Dustin as she makes her way to the area where the age-eligible boys and girls of the district stood. She smiles at him, trying to say thank you again. He just nods in return, looking pale and shaky. 

Hannah finds her a moment later and seizes Erica's hand tightly. Erica clings back just as tightly, the familiar fear that she has lived with for years sneaking up on her yet again. She always manages to keep it together right until the ceremony starts; then she is overtaken with anxiety so severe that she can hardly pay any attention to the names that are being called. 

"Okay," Hannah says, pulling Erica with her. "Let's stand in the middle."

"Away from the cameras?" Erica suggests jokingly, but Hannah looks nervously around at the Peacekeepers. "I'm kidding."

"I'm not." Hannah picks a spot and fidgets with her hair. Up on the stage erected for this purpose alone, the rest of Hannah's family is sitting and talking quietly. On their right is Sean Parker, District 12's only living victor. He seems marginally more alert than normal; ordinarily he is so strung out on morphling that it's difficult to get any sense out of him. 

Gretchen, the District 12 liaison, trots onto the stage in her absurdly high heels and beams at them. Erica likes Gretchen well enough; she seems much more sensible than the other District liaisons from what she's seen in the vids, though that doesn't take much. Gretchen has at least refrained from dyeing her skin or doing anything wilder with her hair than turning it gold and wearing it in an elaborate twist. 

"Welcome!" she says brightly, waving a little. “Today is the Reaping for the 74th Annual Hunger Games!" Erica tunes her, and the "informative" video, out, instead looking around for her family. She spots them in the back and sees Henry looking back. Erica gives him an encouraging smile before looking ahead again.

The video is showing the scarred remains of District 13 once again, just to emphasize the futility of rebellion, and the people around Erica are shifting impatiently. They’ve all seen the same video dozens of time, and it has ceased to have any impact, to the point where Erica has started noticing the odd little glitch in the District 13 footage, where the same bird seems to fly past twice. Gretchen apparently senses their mood, because she ends the video and moves quickly on, reading from the Treaty of Treason.

She claps her hands when she has finished. "It is now time to choose this year's valiant champions for District 12!" she trills brightly, smiling. She pauses briefly, as if expecting applause, but they remain stiffly silent. She rallies and continues, "As usual, ladies first."

Hannah squeezes Erica's hand so hard Erica can't feel her fingertips. Erica watches, heart pounding hard against her chest, as Gretchen approaches the glass bowl that holds the names of the girls of District 12. 

Erica’s first nightmares about the Games had nothing to do with being in them herself; she had dreamed about the people she knew from school being called, of having to watch them die and being powerless to help them. It was only later, after the first time that she put her name in, that she began to dream herself among them, always waking with phantom blood on her face and hands. She was sick the first time she dreamed of killing another person, and hadn’t gone hunting for a week, hoping that avoiding violence would help her forget the slick, dream-sense of blood in her mouth.

It never did help.

Gretchen pulls a slip from the bowl and returns to the microphone, still beaming. She unfolds it, reads the paper, then calls –

"Erica Albright!"

For a moment, Erica can't quite process what she has just heard. Her blood pounds in her ears, her breathing goes shallow and desperate. Around her, the girls are turning to stare at her, and Hannah's hand has gone limp and clammy in hers. Someone gently nudges Erica, and she stumbles forward on uncooperative feet until someone grabs her arm and sets her straight. Distantly, she can hear Grace crying, and she has to bite the inside of her lip as the Peacekeepers swarm around her. 

"Come on up!" Gretchen chirps. "Don't be shy, darling."

Erica is nearly at the stage when she hears Henry scream, " _No_ , Erica!" and she turns to see the peacekeepers holding him back, even as he kicks and bites at them. " _Erica_!"

She runs back towards him without thinking about it, shouldering past her escorts and falling to her knees in front of Henry. He breaks free of the Peacekeepers and throws himself into her arms. Erica hugs him tightly, blinking rapidly to hold back her grief. "I have to go, I have to," she says, loudly enough for people to hear. "I'll come back, I promise."

"You could run away," Henry whispers, and Erica is suddenly both blindingly proud and absolutely terrified. "You don't have to –"

“I do, Henry,” she says, stroking his hair back from his face. “You know I have to.”

“I could volunteer,” Henry says. “I could take your place –”

“You’re a boy and too young besides.” Erica squeezes him. “And if you think I’d let you – if I’d let _anyone_ – die for me, then you’re mistaken. No one is taking my place.”

“But you could die,” Henry says. 

“Dad went to work every day knowing he might die,” Erica reminds him, swallowing past the choked feeling in her chest. “I’ll be fine, sweetheart. I promise. Take care of Grace and Mom for me. Just until I get back."

"Erica –" Henry cries as Erica releases him and steps away. "No, Erica –!"

Erica turns away and settles her shoulders firmly. She doesn't look back this time as she lets the Peacekeepers guide her towards the stage, even as hot tears prickle at the back of her eyes. 

Her heart pounding in her throat as she mounts the steps up to the stage. She looks out over the crowd for her mother as Gretchen pulls her closer to the center and sees her holding Henry and Grace close. Erica tries to smile at them, but can't quite manage it. 

She doesn't listen to the cheerful patter of Gretchen's voice, instead just looking out at the sea of familiar faces, now grim and strange with grief. Her hands feel numb, and she slowly curls them into fists, breathing hard. 

To her right, Gretchen is moving towards the boys' bowl, heels clicking. Erica closes her eyes for a moment, praying that it’ll be someone she doesn’t know, then opens them again as Gretchen clears her throat in the microphone. 

"And our male champion will be – Dustin Moskovitz!" she says brightly. 

Erica’s stomach drops. She searches the crowd for the familiar tuft of auburn hair, hoping desperately that someone will stop him from going up, that someone will take his place. Dustin is no warrior, not even by District 12 standards. And he’s not someone she could watch die, not ever. 

She spots him weaving his way through the boys, his already pale face gone white and sickly. He ascends the stairs with slow, steady steps and walks to stand next to her without being prompted. He looks at her for a moment, eyes huge and terrified. 

Without thinking about it, Erica reaches out to take his hand. It's clammy and cold and limp for a long moment. Then he squeezes her fingers and lifts his free hand to his lips, kissing his three fingers and holding them out to the crowd in farewell. 

Erica catches her breath as one by one, the people of District 12 silently copy the gesture. She remembers people doing it at her father's funeral, and her mother crying in grief and gratitude. To see people giving _her_ the same gesture is strange and horrible, but moving at the same time. After a moment, she returns the gesture, and Dustin gives her a brief, fleeting smile.

Gretchen steps forward a moment later, forcing a confused smile, and says, "Well! It is lovely to see such solidarity in a District." Out of the corner of her eye, Erica sees Sean start to laugh silently. 

 

After the Reaping ceremony has finished, she and Dustin are taken away to the mayor's house to await the train to the Capitol. They sit together in silence in the living room, neither of them looking at each other. Erica's hands have gone cold and clammy now that the initial rush of being chosen has worn off, and she keeps thinking about all the things she needs to tell her mother, what she has to tell the twins. 

The door bangs open, and a Peacekeeper strides in. They both jerk upright and stare at him. 

“You have ten minutes to say your goodbyes,” the Peacekeeper says brusquely. “Your family and friends will be in shortly.”

Erica swallows and looks over towards Dustin, who is staring straight ahead, his eyes shadowed. She notices for the first time that his hair is combed more neatly than it had been that morning, and she wonders if his mother had dressed him up, too.

A moment later, the doors open, and her mother and siblings come in. Henry and Grace are holding hands, and they run to her together without saying a word. She drops to her knees to embrace them and says, “It’ll be all right.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Dustin shaking his father’s hand, looking very serious. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Erica,” her mother says, reaching out a trembling hand. “We’ll miss you.”

“Hannah will keep you safe. If I —” Erica swallows and shakes her head. “You’ll be fine. Grace, Henry — look after each other. And when your time comes, you’re not to put your name in more than you have to, okay?”

“Okay,” Grace whispers in her ear. Henry doesn’t reply until Erica pinched his waist gently.

“Fine,” he says, a little grumpily, even though his face is still streaked with tears. She gives them both one last squeeze, then releases them. “You have to win, Erica,” he says. “Please.”

“Don’t you have faith in me?” She pats his cheek and manages a smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

She straightens up and looks at her mother, who is visibly holding back tears, her cheeks gone red and hectic with emotion. After a moment, they embrace, and Erica inhales the familiar herbal scent, feeling for a moment as though she is twelve and newly entered into the Reaping. She had cried, then, she remembers, and her father had stroked her hair until she fell asleep. He had died three weeks later. 

"I love you," her mother says when they pull back. "Come back to us."

"I will," Erica promises hollowly, and she sees the same lack of conviction in her mother's eyes. They both know her chances, but the twins are watching. Her mother kisses Erica's cheek and squeezes her hand before ushering the twins from the room. Grace has started crying. Erica bites the inside of her cheek and stares at the floor. 

The door opens again a moment later, and Hannah comes rushing in past the Peacekeepers. "Erica!" she exclaims, and she hugs her so tightly that Erica can't breathe for a moment. "You'll win," she says when she pulls back. "You're good, I know you are."

Without thinking about it, Erica's gaze slides over to Dustin, who is talking to his own siblings now. "That might not be enough," she says. She knows that she could kill, if it came down to it, but the idea of returning to District 12 with Dustin's blood on her hand is the stuff of her nightmares.

"Erica –" Hannah says, frowning. 

"Hannah," Erica says, overriding her. "Take care of my family, please? Keep them safe."

"Of course," Hannah says. "I will, I promise." She hugs Erica again. "Oh, my sister wants to talk to you," she says when she steps back. "I'll get her."

Erica raises her eyebrows in surprise as Hannah leaves the room. She has spoken to Tori maybe a dozen times in total, always in the context of being Hannah's friend. But sure enough, Tori comes into the room a moment later. Tori closes the distance between them and throws her arms around Erica’s neck, startling Erica so much she nearly shrugs her off. 

“I have something for you,” she whispers in Erica’s ear. “Don’t react. Tell them it’s your token if they ask.” She pulls away and presses something into Erica’s palm. “Make sure people see. And trust only the mockingjays."

“Okay,” Erica says, frwoning in confusion. “Thank you.” She opens her palm and sees a small, golden mockingjay pin. She forces herself not to jump in surprise and instead looks up curiously. Tori presses her finger to her lips, then closes Erica's fingers over it. Erica looks up and catches Dustin looking at them curiously. His own family has left, and he's looking marginally less pale, if more melancholy. She nods to him, clutching the pin tightly in her hand.

Erica can't stop turning the pin over in her fingers as she and Dustin are taken away to the train. It's a strange gift, stranger still that Tori gave it to her. She closes her hand around it when Gretchen gets close, not sure if she wants anyone to see it, and forces a smile. 

Gretchen, seemingly encouraged by this, beams brightly and trills, "This is all very exciting, isn't it? Wait until you see the train! I’m sure you have never seen anything like it in your whole life!"

Erica catches Dustin's eye, and they both look away hurriedly so they don't laugh. Erica is sure Gretchen meant it kindly, but it came out with an air of condescension that is so perfectly _Capitol_ that she isn't sure how to respond. 

As it turns out, though, Gretchen is completely right. Their compartment on the train is better furnished than the mayor's house and has an obscene amount of food loaded on a buffet table. Erica has never seen half the fruits on the platters. She picks up something weirdly shaped and red and bites into it curiously. It's sweet but slightly tart at the same time, and she frowns down at it while Sean comes banging into the compartment. 

"Right," Sean says loudly. "At some point, we'll start talking about how you're not going to embarrass me in the arena, but right now I want to eat and have a nap, so the two of you are _not_ going to bother me until after that."

Erica had almost forgotten that Sean would be their mentor. Now she eyes his bared forearms with the track marks running from his elbows and the purple bags under his eyes with trepidation. Dustin looks as skeptical as she feels, but he doesn't say anything, just takes a seat by the window to watch the scenery. 

Erica sits down across from him, feeling a strange urge to stick as close to him as possible. His hair looks very red in the sunlight slanting through the window. She toys with the pin again, staring at it as though it will tell her why Tori gave it to her. It catches the light and reflects it into Dustin’s eyes. He blinks and squints down at it. 

“What is that?” he asks, nodding towards her hands. She holds it out for him to see. “Is that your token?”

“That’s what — yes,” she says, rubbing her thumb around the edge. “I don’t know why Tori gave this to me, but I guess it _is_ my token.”

“Mockingjays, well —” Dustin shrugs. “They’re seen as a sign of resistance to the Capitol. Maybe she thought it would give you strength.”

Erica says, “Maybe,” and doesn’t tell him what Tori had whispered in her ear when they hugged. She toys with it for a moment longer, then carefully pins it to the front of her dress. Sean, who is walking towards them with Gretchen, pauses when she moved her hands away.

“What is that?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“It’s a mockingjay pin,” Erica says, a little defensively. “Tori gave it to me.”

Sean’s expression abruptly goes very blank. “She did?” He and Gretchen exchange strangely significant glances, and then Sean smiles brightly. “Well, it’s very pretty, don’t you think, Gretchen?”

"Yes," Gretchen says, but she's looking at Erica consideringly. Something has shifted in the air, something that Erica can't quite nail down, but Gretchen has lost her flighty air and turned into something hard and flinty. 

But then, just as abruptly, Gretchen turns back into the same inane person she has always been, saying something inconsequential about the fabric of the seats they're sitting on and asking, isn’t it just the finest thing?

Erica looks over at Dustin while Gretchen prattles on and gives him a tiny, resigned smile. After a moment, he smiles back before turning to stare out the window. 

True to his word, Sean stretches out on a couch with one arm thrown over his face to shade his eyes. The light catches weirdly on the marks on his arm, and Erica narrows her eyes, trying to get a better look. But then Sean shifts and she can't figure out what it is she saw anyway, so she turns back to stare out the window with Dustin. 

She ends up falling asleep sometime during the journey, her head lolling uncomfortably against the glass, and she only wakes when Gretchen calls, "Oh, Dustin, Erica, you have to be awake to see this!"

Erica jerks upright. Dustin knuckles at his eyes sleepily and squints out the window. For a moment, Erica isn't sure what she's seeing; then she realizes that yes, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of Capitol citizens waiting for them, all of them waving and cheering. Dustin waves his hand bemusedly and waves back. 

This seems to set them off, because now they're jostling each other, trying to get a better look, and Dustin kicks Erica under the table until she gets it and starts waving too, though she feels very strange about waving to people who are going to watch her die. 

Gretchen makes an approving noise and says, "Well, you two aren't total losses."

Sean snorts and says, "You should have heard what she said about me."

Gretchen sniffs. "You were very good at charming certain people, but not others, and you were _impossible_ to control."

Sean smirks at Erica and says, "I still am."

Erica looks away to hide her unwilling smile. She has been wondering about having Sean as their mentor, had worried that he would be too strung out on morphling to give them any proper advice, but he seems to be just as sharp as he had been at sixteen, when he’s sober. She had been young during his games, but she remembers watching him outsmart everyone else in the arena, turning them against each other until he was the only one left. 

They could use someone like him, she thinks, looking at Dustin's face, his smile so wide and sincere that she can almost forget how sick and frightened he had looked on the stage in District 12. 

"See?" Sean says to Erica, gesturing at the excited crowds. "Keep this up and you'll have more sponsors than you know what to do with. One of you might actually stand a chance at getting out of there alive."

"Is that the plan, then?" Erica asks him. "Is that your only advice?"

"Why don't you two focus on making an impression tonight, and we'll talk strategy after we've seen what your stylists come up with." Sean slaps her on the back. "Tonight, after the procession."

 

The first place Erica is brought in the Capitol is what Erica can only charitably describe as a very high-tech torture chamber. She and Dustin are separated, stripped of their clothing, hosed down, and shampooed and perfumed until Erica feels like she rolled in a field of flowers out in the forest. The beauticians assigned to Erica unwind her hair after she exits the shower, exclaiming over it in amazement. 

"We can't cut it," the thinner one says, stroking his fingers through Erica's hair. "Maybe some color –"

"Not right now, Rosen. We should wait for Marilyn to decide." The other beautician picks up Erica's discarded clothing and begins to fold it. She stops suddenly and frowns. "What's this?" 

She plucks the mockingjay pin from Erica's dress and looks up at Erica. "Is this your token?"

"Yes," Erica says, resisting the urge to reach out for it. "Is that all right?"

"Of course!" The beautician – Erica thinks her name is Mathilde – strokes her fingers over its surface. "It's quite pretty, isn't it? It'll have to be examined by the Gamemakers, just to be sure there it won't give you an unfair advantage, but we'll get it back to you as soon as possible."

"Thank you." Erica smoothes her hands down the thick fabric of the robe she was given. It is by far the nicest thing she has ever worn, and she tries to imagine living in a world where this was something so basic that it could be given as bathwear to a girl would likely be dead before the month was out. 

"Why don't you sit right here, and Marilyn will be in with you in just a few minutes," Mathilde says kindly. "We'll get you looking your best."

Erica isn't sure that she cares to look her best, but she smiles and nods anyway, and Mathilde and Rosen leave together, chattering amiably about some film they had watched the week before. Erica sits on the provided chair, running her hands over the fabric covering her knees, and swallowing down her nervousness. The tribute procession is always an exercise in ridiculousness, the stylists doing their best to be as outrageous and outlandish as possible. The District 12 stylists have never been particularly flashy, though, and have usually tended towards simpler costumes for their tributes. 

Erica just hopes she's wearing clothes instead of artistically placed shells, like the District 4 tributes from three years ago. 

She has been waiting for around five minutes when a small woman, no taller than Erica herself, enters the room. Unlike most of the other Capitol citizens, she is dressed simply in pale shades of gray. She also lacks the implants or body modifications that others sport; indeed, she wears her dark hair short, and the only make-up Erica notices is a faint, silvery swoop of liner along her eyelids. 

"My name is Marilyn," the woman says. She steps further into the room, but slowly, giving Erica time to move away if she wants. "I've been assigned to be your and Dustin's stylist for the Games."

"You're going to make me presentable?" Erica jokes, though it falls flat and thin when her voice wavers on the last word. "What did you do to get the coal miners from District 12?"

"I asked to be your stylist, actually," Marilyn says, smiling serenely. 

Erica blinks at her in surprise. "Really?"

"Really." Marilyn paces towards her. "I was – struck by your Reaping. That gesture, the one they sent you and Dustin off with – what does it mean? I've never seen it before."

Erica stares at Marilyn, trying to read an ulterior motive in her kind face, but sees only genuine curiosity. "It's – we use it at funerals, usually. It's a gesture of respect."

"And love," Marilyn says quietly. "I think I understand." She sits down next to Erica. "That's what I saw, when I watched your Reaping. Your district and your family love you. I think other people saw that too. We can use that. We'll show them why you're loved."

Erica stares at Marilyn, who is looking off into the distance, expression thoughtful. "How?"

Marilyn turns back towards Erica and smiles. "How do you feel about fire?"

 

"I think Marilyn might be insane," Dustin says when they meet again in what they're told is a dressing room, though it's at least the size of the Moskovitz bakery. His hair is no longer combed back severely, but is instead ruffled like he’s been running his hands through it. Erica thinks she likes it better like this. "She wants to set us on _fire_."

"Our chariot, not us," Erica says, although privately she kind of agrees with him. 

Sean walks into the room, humming a song that Erica recognizes, though she isn’t sure why. "It won't burn you," he says. Gretchen follows him, looking pleased at the marked improvement in their looks. "No need to wound you now, there'll be plenty of time for that in the Games."

"Sean," Gretchen says warningly. 

Sean completely ignores her. "I like the message you sent at the Reaping with the funereal salute. It sent a real message of solidarity. We can sell that."

"So what does that mean?" Erica demands. 

"Present a united front. Together, you're more dangerous than you are on your own, and that should hopefully keep the other tributes from bothering you for a while." Sean is pacing now. He has rolled up his sleeves above his elbows, and Erica notices, with a sharp thrill of surprise, that the trackmarks are missing from his arms. 

He catches her looking and quickly tugs down his sleeves again, but Erica isn't fooled. 

"Appearances are important in these Games," he says, meeting her eyes. "You can fool people into underestimating you or wanting to ally themselves with you. Keep an eye out at the procession. You'll see what I mean."

Their beauticians arrive with their freshly made clothing not long later. Erica takes the floaty, seemingly insubstantial dress from Mathilde's hands and stares at it. "It was made this quickly?"

"This is the Capitol," Mathilde says, as if that's answer enough. Erica supposes that for her, it is. She thinks of the dress she had worn for the Reaping, every stitch carefully hand sewn over the course of several weeks, and rubs the silky material of her new gown between her fingers.

"Time to get changed, Erica," Gretchen says gently, urging Erica towards the modesty screens. So Erica goes and changes, slipping the gown on over her head. It fits perfectly, of course. She smoothes her hands down it and steps out to be cooed over by the beauticians and Gretchen. 

Erica doesn't know how Marilyn did it, but the flow of her dress from the shiny satin to the smoky, barely there silk around her ankles is seamless. Her stylists flutter around her, pinning her hair back and applying make-up to her eyes and lips. She has never worn make-up before; it is a luxury she always deemed too expensive and too pointless for someone living the life she leads. It's strange to see her eyelids darkened with smoky color, her lips and cheeks heightened to a brighter pink. 

She has to admit she looks very striking. 

"We have to go get the chariot ready," Gretchen calls, and Erica turns around. 

Dustin is wearing an elegant suit, made of the same slick satin as Erica's dress. They've put make-up on him, too, Erica is amused to note, but she supposes that they have to look good for the cameras. 

Dustin, for his part, stares at her for a long moment, mouth open slightly. Then he smiles and says, "You look beautiful."

"Let's hope everyone else agrees," Sean mutters. 

They're the last ones to arrive at the procession hall, which is fine by Erica. It gives her the opportunity to look at the other tributes so she can draw some opinions before watching their Reaping footage or seeing them in practice. 

The tributes from Districts 1 and 2 are all powerfully built and elegant. They're from the wealthiest districts, and their mentors are some of the most famous winners of the last twenty years. There is one in particular, who must be at least a foot taller than Erica, who strikes her as more dangerous than anyone else. He is sizing up the crowd with the same intensity as Erica, . Their eyes meet for a moment; then Erica looks away, gaze skimming over the handsome, slender male tribute from District 4, the fierce-looking girl from District 11 and her tough, dark-haired male counterpart. Erica accidentally catches the eye of a girl she thinks is from District 8, a delicate slip of a girl with a beautiful smile. Erica smiles back, wondering if she should acknowledge her in anyway, but then a familiar face catches her attention. 

Erica recognizes the mentor from District 3; but then, everyone would. Chris Hughes had won only four years ago at the age of twelve — the youngest winner in the history of the games. He had charmed everyone during his interviews with his smiles and dry wit and his precociousness far beyond his years. And he had won by virtue of the fact that everyone had discounted the sweet, idealistic blond boy, and hadn’t realized that his smiles hid a steel core.

He looks wearier now and somehow even _thinner_ than he had when they had taken him from the arena, tiny and so young that it hurt to look at him. He is still young, Erica reminds herself, the same age as herself, but it's hard to remember that when she looks at him. She just remembers the twelve year-old boy who had wept over the body of his partner from District 3, an older girl who had protected him for as long as she could, before getting to his feet and picking up the knife she had abandoned, his face set and emotionless.

He looks up and catches her staring. He gives her a small smile, then bent to speak to his male tribute, forehead creased in a frown. The tribute – a skinny boy with curly hair and a defiant set to his mouth – glances at Erica. He scowls for a moment, then says something that makes Chris sigh. 

Sean makes a thoughtful noise from behind Erica. "Scoping out the competition?" he asks, poking her gently in the back. "I'm not sure he's one to look out for. I'd be more worried about District 1's offerings." He nods to the tall boy, who is accepting the crown of diamond-like shards. 

"District 3 has lasted a long time in the last few games," Erica points out. 

"Sean, get out of my way," barks Marilyn, shooing him away. Sean scoots, and Marilyn comes to stand in front of Erica and Dustin, that familiar vague expression on her face that Erica has learned only means trouble. 

"This will be amazing," Marilyn says, smiling. "You're going to be _radiant_." She holds up a finger. "One last touch."

She holds out her other hand, palm up. There, looking small and harmless, is Erica's mockingjay pin. 

"They wanted to check it over first," Marilyn says, smiling, "but they've decide it's safe enough for you to wear. And you should wear it tonight."

Erica takes it, watching Marilyn's face carefully. She can't tell if Marilyn is aware of the significance attached to the symbol, if she's one of the people who Erica is supposed to trust. But she's relieved to have it back regardless; it's a small piece of home. 

She pins it to her dress, just over her heart, and touches it just once for comfort. "Thank you," she says quietly. 

"You wear it well," Marilyn says. She smiles, then turns to Dustin, who is looking a little nervous as the stylists affix the crown to his head. "Feeling all right?"

"Wish I hadn't eaten so much on the train," Dustin says thickly. Marilyn squeezes his shoulder gently. 

"Take deep breaths," she advises. "It won't look good if you're sick all over your chariot."

There are a couple of other tributes who look just as nervous as Dustin. The tiny, curly-haired girl from District 6 and her awkward, slump-shouldered fellow are huddled together, and the girl from District 9 is bent over, hyperventilating, while her mentor rubs her back and tries to get her to stand up. 

"Erica," Marilyn says, recalling her attention. "Are you ready?"

Erica nods and inclines her head so Marilyn can set the thin, tubular crown on her hair. She straightens and sees that the one on Dustin's head is glowing now, casting a rich, orange light over his hair and shoulders. He gives her a small smile as he steps onto their chariot before holding out his hand. 

"Time to show them who we are," he says. "We'll prove District 12 is worth something."

She says, "We don't need to prove anything to these people." 

"No," Dustin says quietly. "I mean to the people back home."

"Oh." She looks around and catches Sean watching them. He gives her a small nod. "Okay."

Dustin smiles and helps her onto the chariot. He has settled into a strange, eerie calm that is strikingly different from his relentlessly cheerful disposition at home, and when she looks at him now, Erica sees someone who has decided to fight. 

"Keep your heads high," Marilyn says. "Be strong." She steps back as Rosen comes forward, holding a small vial of clear liquid. "Don't flinch."

Rosen drips the liquid onto the base of their chariot, just a few drops, and suddenly huge, false flames leap up around them, wreathing them in fire. Erica just barely manages not to step back, and Dustin clings to her hand. Some of the other tributes are turning to look at them, eyes wide, and Erica wonders what they must look like to inspire those fascinated, amazed glances.

Erica has to look at the screens as their chariot brings them out, her curiosity too strong to ignore. The flames leaping around them are cool to the touch, and the crowns on their heads are glowing dully, gleaming like the last embers of a coal fire. The slick, almost oily sheen of their black clothing reflects the light, and Erica wants to touch her own stomach to see if she really radiates the heat and warmth that she seems to. On the screens, they look eerie, otherworldly, like something out of an ancient tale. They are radiant, explosive, and Erica knows that they're nothing like anything anyone has seen before. She remembers the other tribute processions vividly, and no one has been quite as extraordinary as they are now. 

Dustin reaches out for her hand again as the crowd's cheers rise in volume, and she squeezes tightly as she waves to them, plastering a bright smile on her face even as bile rises in her throat. These are the people she is going to die for, she thinks, looking around at their painted faces, their bodies that have never known hunger or sickness. 

The cameras catch on her pin and linger, and Erica is startled to hear the crowd's noises change a little. They seem more curious now, and she sees some leaning forward to look, to stare at the screens where the false flames are playing across the burnished surface of the pin. Erica lifts her chin defiantly and squeezes Dustin's hand, and that's when she notices that the flames trailing out from their chariot look distinctly like wings. 

"Marilyn sure knows how to create a spectacle," Dustin notes wryly, looking up at the screens. 

"Yeah," Erica agrees, voice coming out faint. It's a symbol of defiance, of rebellion; she knows that instinctively. When she looks up at the dais where President Summers is watching the proceedings, she can tell that he knows it too. 

She shivers and hopes that Marilyn hasn't signed their death warrant. 

 

After President Summers's speech officially welcoming the tributes and reintroducing each of them to the baying crowd, they are brought back to their handlers. Marilyn seizes Erica's hand tightly and says, "You were incredible. Never blinked."

Erica doesn't know how to ask her about the fiery wings, if she had meant it to be as rebellious as it had seemed, so she just nods and says, "Thank you." She touches the pin on her chest self-consciously and Marilyn smiles before turning to Dustin. 

Erica catches Sean watching her, and he gives her an ironic salute before turning to watch the other tributes with a distinctly cynical eye. 

Erica was eight years old the first time she questioned the Hunger Games. It was the year Sean won, and they had watched, as everyone did, as Sean took down the other tributes with his clever manipulations, playing them against each other so he had to fight as few as possible

She hadn't known him before, of course; there were eight years of difference between them, and Sean had lived in town, not in the outskirts of the District. But she knew of him, knew that he had a girlfriend named Amy, knew that he had parents who had to be forced to go to the public showings of the Games. She watched his mother cry silently when he had killed for the first time, 

The Games were their way of life, and she knew the history behind them as well as anyone. But even at eight, she didn't understand why they were still considered necessary and had the poor judgment to ask in class. 

Had she been born in another, stricter District, she probably would have been punished, and severely, for speaking out so blatantly against the Capitol. As it was, her teacher was merciful and took it merely as the innocent question of a child, though they still called her mother down to the school to collect her. 

"The Games are our penance," her mother had explained that night, stroking Erica's hair. "There are still people alive who remember the rebellion; they must be reminded of why it was wrong."

"But the Capitol makes us sacrifice _children_ ," Erica said, looking over at the cribs where Henry and Grace lay sleeping. "We did nothing wrong."

Her mother had not argued with that. It wasn’t until later that Erica knew realized that her mother privately agreed with her. 

She also knew that she could never breathe a word of her anger to anyone. 

It's hard to do that now, though, when she's facing her own death, or her own survival at the expense of other children her age. She's smart enough to recognize that Sean's morphling facade had been created to mask his own anger. She sees it in his eyes whenever he talks about the Gamemakers, whenever he describes strategy. 

"We should watch the vids from the other Reapings," Sean says as he leads her and Dustin up to their suite. "It's a good way to get a sense of who you will be up against." 

"All right," Dustin says. "Can we change clothes first?"

Sean raises his eyebrows and says, "If you have to," but he grins, so Erica takes it as the joke it's clearly meant to be. 

The suite they have been assigned is the most opulent place Erica has ever been in her life. It's resplendent and grotesque, the way all the pageantry of the Capitol is, and Erica has never felt less at ease in her life. Her skin prickles, as though she's being watched, and she finds herself looking around for hidden cameras.

She changes into the loosest, casual clothing she can find in closet provided to her, and still feels as though she has stolen something. After a moment of hesitation, she transfers the mockingjay pin to her new shirt. Its weight against her collar is oddly reassuring, a tiny piece of strength that she can't help but be grateful for. When she returns to the open common area, she finds Dustin sitting on the very edge of the huge, plush sofa, looking as uncomfortable as she feels. 

"All right," Sean says, padding in on bare feet. He throws himself down on the sofa. "Let's get started, shall we?"

The Reapings in Districts 1 and 2 are predictable – the Career tributes volunteer immediately and with little fanfare. It's the Reaping from District 3 that's surprising. 

Erica watches as the girl is called forward to mild applause, her head held high. She seems calm, collected. She could be a problem further down the line if she keeps her cool head. 

Then the boy's name is called, and the cameras pan to – not the curly-haired boy from the procession, but a small boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, with neatly combed dark hair. Erica frowns and glances over at Dustin, who seems just as puzzled as she is. 

Onscreen, the other boys are gently urging the young boy forward. The boy walks forward on legs that are shakier than a newborn foal’s, his lip wobbling. Erica leans forward and waits –

"No," calls a voice, and Erica glances back at the screen in time to see the curly-haired boy stepping forward. "No, wait – wait, I volunteer! I volunteer!"

There's a rumble of surprise from the crowd, and the footage cuts to the stage, where the District 3 liaison is whispering urgently to someone else in Capitol clothing. But Erica's attention is caught by Chris, sitting on the stage with the other past victors. 

He looks terrified and heartbroken, his mouth moving soundlessly as he stares unseeingly at the crowd. He seems to have aged ten years in the span of a moment, his youthful face gone ashen and the pain of living through the Games reflected in his eyes.

Erica feels as though she's going to be sick. 

The volunteer talks quietly to the boy whose name was pulled, his face serious. The boy is shaking his head, and the microphones catch him saying, " _No,_ Mark, you can't –"

"I'm not letting you go," Mark says. "I can do this."

“I’m not –”

“You’re not going,” Mark snaps. “I can do this. You stay here.”

" _No_ ," the boy says, louder, and he grabs at Mark's shirt, trying to stop him from getting up.

"Go back to your parents," Mark says, voice hard. Then he stands and squares his narrow shoulders before walking up towards the stage in slow, determined steps. Erica becomes aware that her hands are hurting, and she realizes that she has clenched them into tight fists. She forces herself to take a deep breath as Mark shakes hands with the District 3 liaison, with Chris. Chris doesn't let Mark go for a moment, leaning in to speak to him urgently. Their conversation is too quiet for the microphones to pick up, but it ends with Mark shaking his head violently and pulling away. 

"He could be trouble," Sean says slowly as the footage ends. "I'll have to scope him out."

"Trouble?" Erica asks. "I thought you said he wasn't a threat." Privately, she agrees that Mark is dangerous, but she wants to hear Sean's opinion. 

"That was before I knew he was a volunteer. District 3 doesn't usually have volunteers, and he is –" Sean taps his chin. "—determined."

Dustin has drawn his knees up to his chest and is staring at the screen silently. Erica reaches out to him without thinking, and he leans into the gentle hand she lays on his shoulder. "What about an alliance?" she asks. She's seen that in the past; the Careers usually run together in a pack, but the lesser Districts do it too, combining skills to keep themselves alive longer.

"If he's willing." Sean stretches luxuriously. "Ready to watch some more?"

"All right," Erica says, and Dustin echoes her. To her surprise, Dustin tucks himself against her side as Sean pulls up the next vid. He's warm and smells like bread and trees, like home. Erica suddenly misses her siblings, the way they would curl up together to sleep. She leans into Dustin, resting her cheek on the top of his head, and tries not to think about what she might have to do in the arena. 

They watch the other Reapings mostly in silence. The slim boy from District 4 seems to be the son of someone wealthy from the way the crowd murmurs and shifts, but no one offers to take his place. The tributes from 6 cling to each other's hands when they're called to the stage, and Erica realizes, horrified, that they're brother and sister. The girl from District 9, the one who had been panicking at the procession, has to be dragged to the stage by the Peacekeepers. Sean narrows his eyes and says, "Stay away from her."

"She's just scared," Dustin protests. 

"Maybe, but the Gamemakers are going to try to get rid of her early on," Sean says. "Anyone who's that much of a troublemaker straight off is too –" He shrugs. "They won't look kindly on you associating with her."

But Erica can't stop thinking about the girl from District 9, about her protests as she was pulled onto the stage, how she looked as though her soul was being ripped from her body. Sean is talking to them about strategy, telling them not to show off too much during the week of training and telling them to stick together as much as possible. Erica just wishes there had been someone to save that poor girl from this bloody mess. 

"So what can you do?" Sean asks, breaking into her reverie. Erica looks up and catches Dustin's eye. "Do you have any skills that might be useful in the arena?"

"I –" Erica says hesitantly, "well, I can shoot a bow."

Dustin laughs. "That's an understatement."

"Yeah?" Sean tilts his head and smirks at Erica. "Consider this a cone of silence, Erica. You won't get in trouble for illegal hunting."

Erica shoots Dustin a look, and he shrugs. She lets out a breath and says, "I'm good."

"Very good," Dustin says, relentless. "You have a way better chance of surviving than I do."

"You're fast," Erica protests, even as her stomach roils. She knows it's true, has known it since Gretchen called Dustin's name in the Reaping. Between the two of them, she has the best chance by far. Dustin is fast and he is clever, but he is not a fighter. Erica has seen him separate kids fighting at school by telling a joke and getting them to make-up. He cares about other people. 

Dustin just shakes his head. "I'm strong from working at the bakery, but that's not much to work with. I don't think it'll impress anyone."

"Even so." Sean looks Dustin over with an assessing eye. "You look scrawny. That's good, they'll underestimate you. Let them. Keep your best skills hidden until your appointment with the Gamemakers. You don't need the other tributes knowing what you can do. We'll have our own private coaching sessions, as well." He tilts his head to the side and smirks, giving them a significant look. "Not that you two need it. You know how to put on a good show."

Erica instinctively wants to pull away from Dustin, her cheeks going red, but she resists the urge and instead glares at Sean, daring him to say anything more. He laughs and gets to his feet. 

"Get some rest," he says. "Training starts tomorrow."

He pads out of the room, humming that strangely familiar song again, leaving Erica and Dustin alone with the videos of the Reapings. Sean had left it paused on the last of the Reaping from District 11. Erica leans forward to pick up the control for the screen and fiddles with it until she somehow gets to the news feed for the Capitol. 

Next to her, Dustin shifts, sitting forward so his elbows are propped up on his knees. On the screen, Caesar Flickerman is discussing the tributes with Claudius Templesmith, the two of them as chirpy and upbeat as always. Erica has always found their blithe, bright personas irritating, but now that they're discussing the people she will be asked to kill in a week's time, she sees them more as sad, broken tools of the Capitol. 

How do they stand it, sending twenty-three children to their deaths every year and championing their murderer at the end of it? Do they ever wake up at night remembering how the thirteen year-old tribute from District 7 had talked about going home and eating her favorite pastries? Do they dream of Chris, his face streaked with blood and tears, staring unseeingly over the arena at the end of his Games?

If they do regret it, if they do feel every death, then she can't imagine how they can continue on every year. Every year, they meet twenty-four children, introduce them to all of Panem, and then proceed to wager and discuss their survival as though their lives mean nothing. 

Nevertheless, Erica hopes that beneath their casual exteriors, they mourn every tribute the way every District mourns them. If they don't, then – well, then Erica doesn't know if she can look at them without feeling the old, familiar anger burn through her. 

"Now this," Caesar is saying on screen, sounding excited, "this was the most exciting thing we've seen at a procession in years, don't you agree?"

"Oh, certainly," Claudius says, nodding enthusiastically. "The spectacle of it! Normally the tributes from District 12 are dressed like _miners_ , but this year they have gone in the complete opposite direction. The sheer elegance of how they're dressed would have been enough to set them apart, but then –"

"The flames," agrees Caesar, and on screen, they're showing the footage of Erica and Dustin, burning as brightly as a star as they are carried along in their chariot. From this angle, it's even clearer that the flames are intended to trail like wings behind them. 

"And then there's that interesting pin," Caesar continues as the footage cuts to a close-up of Erica's pin. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a mockingjay, isn't it?"

Dustin glances up at Erica. She clenches her jaw and touches the pin with one finger. 

"Yes, it is, and it's an interesting choice," Claudius says, looking thoughtful with careful affectation. "Mockingjays are not popular in the Capitol, though there are large populations of them in the outer districts. Their stylist has told us that it is a token from District 12; perhaps it holds a cultural significance there that we don't know."

Erica and Dustin look at each other, and she knows they're both remembering their conversation from the train. A symbol of resistance, Dustin had said; more like a symbol of rebellion.

"What are you two still doing up?" exclaims Gretchen from behind them. Erica turns as Gretchen clacks noisily towards the table, picks up the control, and switches off the vid screen. "It's late, and you need your rest. Go to sleep!"

She stands, arms crossed, and waits until they pull themselves off the sofa. Erica glances over her shoulder at Dustin, unable to help herself, and catches him looking back. She gives him a small smile and heads into her room, the melody of the song Sean had been humming earlier running through her head.

 

Erica sleeps poorly, unnerved by the still silence of the room and the vast expanse of her bed. It's far too soft for her to feel comfortable, and she misses Grace and Henry more sharply than she could have guessed. She wakes up cold, and she stares at the empty spot on her bed for a long time before she's able to pull herself up. 

The training room is seven levels below ground, probably to keep any tributes from trying to escape. Erica thinks the sheer number of trainers, Peacekeepers, and Gamemakers would be enough to put off all but the most determined tributes in any case. They wouldn’t make it thirty feet. 

There are a number of stations set up around the large room. Some are designed for survival training, like building fires or creating traps. Others are more straight-forward practice dummies and targets for weapons. There are even some terminals meant for education, Erica notes, recognizing the logo from school. 

The head trainer, a tall, athletic woman with sleek limbs and close-cropped curly hair, explains each station in detail, then turns to face the tributes with a serious expression. "Many of you will be more concerned with learning to fight. This is important, of course, but you should not underestimate the importance of survival skills. More tributes have died from malnutrition or environmental dangers than anything else." Then she smiles suddenly, sharp and wolfish. "Train wisely, and play nice. Save your fighting for the arena. There are no cameras here."

Some of the other tributes glance over to the elevated dais where the Gamemakers are watching. Erica tries not to smile at that, but she doesn’t quite succeed. Dustin catches her eye, and they both look away quickly to muffle their laughter.

After a quick lecture on safety, they’re set free to pick their training stations. The Careers head straight for the weapons, of course, and Erica sees Dustin go to the survival training, but she hesitates, not sure what she wants to do. She spots the curly-headed volunteer from District 3, the one mentored by Chris Hughes, head over towards one of the computer terminals and start it up with a single-minded expression on his face, and considers joining him – but he doesn't look very welcoming.

She wanders to the edge of a mat set in the middle of the floor and prods it with her foot curiously. It's soft, probably meant for practicing hand-to-hand fighting. She looks away, still undecided. After a moment, she follows Dustin, remembering Sean's advice to stick together. 

He jumps a little when she crouches down next to her, but he shifts over carefully when he realizes who it is. "I'm supposed to be starting a fire," he says wryly, holding out two branches to demonstrate. "It's harder than it looks."

"Yes," Erica says. "I guess you use coal in the bakery."

"You don't?" 

Erica shrugs. "Coal is expensive." She takes the branches from him and examines them. "These are too young."

"Young?" He holds out his hands, and she sets one in his palm. "What do you mean?"

"Feel it." Erica demonstrates, bending the branch. "Feel how springy it is? You need dead wood for a good fire."

"Where did you learn this stuff?" Dustin asks as Erica searches for better wood. "Your mother?"

"No." Erica settles a small pile of sticks between them. "I taught myself a lot of it. Some I learned from reading. After – when my dad died, it was my mom and me, you know? We have Grace and Henry to take care of, still, and so we had to give up some things so we could feed them on her income."

"Like coal."

Erica nods. Most of the coal mined in District 12 goes straight to the other Districts and the Capitol. The remainder is precious, parceled out in small portions and at high prices. Erica had learned very quickly that they could make do with an ordinary wood fire, and that the money normally used for coal did far more as money for food or clothing. "Amy taught me to prepare the animals I caught," she says, setting up the sticks in a triangular shape. "We learned to get by."

Dustin stays silent as she finishes setting up the wood for the fire. She shows him how to coax a spark from the dry tinder, how to use leaves to help the fire catch light, then moves away to let him try. He nearly singes his hand on his first try, and he flinches back with a muttered curse. 

"Careful," she says, and Dustin rolls his eyes at her. 

"Yeah," he says, elbowing her gently. 

Erica supervises as he builds a fire on his own and hugs him around the shoulder when he manages to produce a small, but serviceable fire. "Good," she says. "Now you need to learn how to skin and cook an animal."

"God," Dustin moans, looking a little green. "Can't I just starve?"

"Don't even joke about that," Erica says sharply, because she can imagine it all too easily. Over the years, she has watched dozens of kids starve to death in the Games, unable to feed themselves out in the wild. The year of the snowy wilderness had been the worse; nearly all twenty-four tributes had wasted away, succumbing to starvation and frostbite rather than being taken down by another tribute. 

"Sorry," Dustin says. He reaches down and takes her hand. "I didn't – I'm sorry."

Erica looks down at their joined hands. His hands aren’t as soft as she might have guessed, she notices now, his palms callused from work in the bakery and there’s a shiny burn scar on his wrist. "Come on," she says quietly, and she tugs him over to the station where a trainer is showing the tiny girl from District 6 how to skin a squirrel. 

They are given an hour break for lunch with their mentors, and Sean makes them watch old video clips of the Games, pointing out different strategies that he finds interesting or useful. It's not exactly the best material to watch while they're eating, but Erica soldiers on through her nausea to listen to Sean's lecturing. 

When they return from lunch, the girl from District 9 is arguing with the head-trainer, her arms crossed over her chest. Erica and Dustin both pull up short to watch, hesitating at the edge of the room. None of the other tributes are back yet.

Suddenly, the girl begins to yell, her voice echoing through the room. "I am _not_ going to train and you can't make me!"

"You need to train!" the head trainer shouts back. "Do you want to die in the arena?"

"Better than being a murderer, like you," snaps the tribute, and she stalks off to go sit in a corner of the room. 

Erica swallows hard and can't help peeking up at the Gamemakers. They have bent their heads together, whispering amongst themselves. Erica shivers and hears Sean saying, _they don't like troublemakers_. 

The girl has curled up with her knees to her chest, her head bowed forward. Erica takes a half-step towards her, no real plan in mind except that she wants to talk to her, and Dustin catches her arm in a tight grip. 

"No," he says in a low hiss. "Erica, no, I know – but we can't, Sean said."

"Why not?" she snaps, glaring back at him. 

Dustin sighs and nods up at the Gamemakers. "You see them too. What do you think they're planning for her, Erica?"

And Erica can picture it, because she's had nightmares about the Games since she was old enough to understand what they are, and she has seen the worst things the Gamemakers have thrown at the tributes – earthquakes and blizzards and poisonous water and booby traps and carefully constructed landscapes that hide a dozen ways to die. 

"Fine." She pulls her arm away and jerks her head towards the climbing station. "Want to give this a try?"

So for the next two days of training, Erica does her best to ignore the tribute from District 9, who continues to sit alone in her corner. She trains with Dustin for the most part, though they separate to try their hands at new skills. It's on the third day of training that Erica approaches the mat meant for hand-to-hand training and eyes it speculatively, wondering if she can distract Dustin from his weights long enough to practice with her. 

"Would you like to spar?" someone asks. Erica looks up to see the pretty girl from District 8 standing at the other edge of the mat, a cautious smile on her face. "I need a partner."

"Sure," Erica says, feeling the trainers' eyes on them. "I'm Erica."

"Alice." She flicks her long braid over her shoulder in a practiced, familiar movement that Erica mirrors a moment later. "Let's go."

Erica has never been very good at hand-to-hand fighting; she has always preferred fighting from a distance. Alice, however, is very good, and she has Erica flat on the ground in less five seconds. 

"Wow," Erica says to the ceiling, the word coming out a little strained. 

"You're not planting your feet," Alice says, sounding amused. "Get up, I'll show you."

Erica clambers upright and lets Alice show her what she's doing wrong, conscious all the while of the gaze of the Gamemakers. She wonders what they think of this, of two tributes from different Districts actually helping each other. It probably isn't that unusual; the Careers nearly always form a pack during the Games, and other strange alliances have cropped up every year. Still, it feels weirdly transgressive to accept the help of someone she should be sizing up for weaknesses. She looks up, just once, and catches the head Gamemaker watching them, his pale eyes narrowed thoughtfully. 

Alice knocks Erica down again and says in exasperation, "You aren't paying attention!"

"Sorry," Erica says. She hooks her foot around the back of Alice's knees, pulling forward and sending Alice toppling over on top of her. She winces when Alice falls across her hips, knocking the breath out of her. "Oof."

"See, if I had a weapon, you'd be in serious danger right now," Alice says into Erica's stomach. She pulls herself up and sits back on her haunches, grinning almost ferally. "But that was good."

Alice helps Erica up with a smirking grin, and Erica watches her warily. This time, when she lashes out, Erica catches her arm and pulls hard, sending Alice flying past her. Alice laughs, even as she tumbles to the mat, and says, "Good!"

Erica pulls her to her feet and says, "I guess I'm not completely hopeless."

"Only mostly," Alice agrees. She taps her chest lightly, just under her collar. "I like your pin."

Erica glances down reflexively at the pin she has taken to wearing every day. "Thanks."

"It's very brave of you," Alice says. She gives Eric a smile that seems like it's meant to be significant, but Erica is distracted by a loud, piercing scream that rips through the muted sounds of practice. 

Erica whirls, hands instinctively going for the bow she isn't carrying and sees the girl from District 1 shrinking back against the wall, her hands over her mouth. Tyler starts to shout, and the Gamemakers on the observation platform have gotten to their feet as the Peacekeepers run over towards them. 

At first, Erica doesn't see what the ruckus is about. Then she looks down at Tyler's feet and sees the girl from District 9, the one who has refused to train, lying at his feet. Tyler drops to his knees beside her, lifting her arm into his lap, and Erica gasps when she sees the blood. The girl has slashed her arms in huge, violent swipes from her wrists to her elbows. Blood is pouring onto her practice suit and the floor, horribly red. Already, her face is visibly paler, and Tyler's hands get more and more stained as he yells for help, his voice cracking.

The head trainer swears violently and runs out of the room. Up on their dais, the Gamemakers have stopped chatting amongst themselves and are watching in horrified fascination. One of them, a slender man with outrageous plumes of aquamarine hair, faints when Tyler pulls the girl fully into his lap, getting blood on his shirt and trousers. 

"She did this to herself," Tyler is saying to no in particular. "She did this _to herself_."

The head trainer returns a moment later with four Peacekeepers in tow, and she directs them with a frantic wave of her hand. The Peacekeepers pick up the girl, not particularly carefully, and carry her from the room, leaving a messy trail of blood in their wake. She is unconscious now, and her head lolls awkwardly with every step. Erica wonders what they will do if she dies, if they'll quietly find another tribute from the same district or if they'll find a way to cover it up. 

Tyler is still kneeling on the floor, hands bloody and his face ashen. "Why would she do that?" he asks the girl from his district, loudly enough for Erica to hear even though she is across the room from him. "She's in the Games!"

 _Because she's in the Games_ , Erica doesn't say. 

She looks at Alice and sees her own feeling of disbelief mirrored Alice's face. Neither of them say anything, though; Alice just lets out a small sigh and kicks out. Erica blocks her instinctively, and they fall back into practicing. 

 

They're kept out of the training room for longer than usual during lunch, and when they come back, the blood has been completely cleaned up. The girl from District 9 is still missing, and there are more guards in the room now, keeping a close eye on the tributes. Erica goes to join Dustin at the area set aside for practicing knots and traps, and watches him quickly tie and untie a complicated-looking knot.

"Do you know her name?" she asks in an undertone. She reaches out and takes a separate length of rope for herself so she doesn’t arouse any suspicion. 

Dustin doesn't have to ask who she means. "I don't remember," he admits, moving to stand next to her. He helps her tie the first knot, his hands sure but gentle on hers. "When Sean warned us to stay away from her –"

"Yeah." Erica starts to pick the knot apart again, fingers slipping against the fibers. "Maybe we shouldn't have."

"We're not here to make friends," Dustin says. When she raises her eyebrows, he laughs a little. "What?"

"There's no reason we can't." Erica yanks hard at part of the knot. To her annoyance, it only gets tighter. "They want us to hate each other."

"They want good television," Dustin says. "Erica –"

A different pair of hands settles over hers, the fingers longer and tanner than Dustin's. "Here," a quiet voice says, and they both glance up to see the boy from District 4. "You're pulling on the wrong part," he adds shyly. Erica looks on in astonishment as he pulls lightly on one loop of rope and the knot slithers apart. 

"Wow," she says, and Dustin echoes her. "How did you know to do that?"

"Everyone knows knots in District 4," he says. He hesitates, then adds, "Her name is Anne."

He moves away before Erica has a chance to respond. She wonders how long he had been listening, if he had heard their borderline treasonous talk. Judging from the look on Dustin's face, he's wondering the same thing. 

 

When Anne returns to training the next day, her arms are bandaged up to her elbows, and there's a vacant look in her eyes that sends shudders down Erica's spine. She obediently accepts the spear put into her hands by the head trainer and spends the whole day dutifully attending to each station she's directed to. 

It's unnerving. 

"Morphling," Alice says when she and Erica meet again for sparring. "Don't you recognize it? I thought your mentor –" She mimes injecting a drug. 

Erica shrugs. "He's taking care of us," she says, which she knows isn't really an answer, but she's willing to keep Sean's secret for him. "He wants one of us to win."

"Ah." Alice looks down. "My mother – she is, or. Her brother was a tribute." She smiles, lopsided and humorless. "She was never the same after, they tell me."

Erica reaches out and squeezes Alice's shoulder gently, not knowing what to say. Her mother had wallowed in guilt and grief when her father died, but she had never fallen so deep that she couldn't be brought back out. 

Alice smiles up at her before tapping Erica's hip lightly. "Shift, you're putting too much weight on your right foot."

When Erica brings Anne up with Sean later, Sean nods. "Of course they drugged her," he says. "They need to keep her alive long enough to get her into the Games. They probably threatened her too, just to be careful." 

"She's already in the Games," Erica points out. "What else can they do to her?"

Sean's smile twists. "She has family." 

And Erica understands, suddenly, why Sean keeps up the morphling facade. It's more than just keeping the Capitol off-guard – it's protecting people, people like Amy or Sean's mother. A family can be used to make a person do anything, if the pressure is right. 

"Don't worry about her, though," Sean says, sweeping away the dishes in front of him. "Let's talk a little bit about the arena."

Erica lies awake that night, trying to remember all the other living Victors of the Games. Some of them have reputations as drunks or morphlings. Others live quiet, unassuming lives. Still others have decadent extravaganzas in the Capitol every year – and now that she thinks on it, they are the Victors who had been the most popular to begin with, the ones who had caught everyone's attention. 

She wonders now what compromises or sacrifices they have had to make to the Capitol to keep their families safe and to help the Capitol save face. How many of the mentors are willing – and how many are forced to watch children die every year, just to keep them cowed? 

Erica had always thought that winning was the best result a tribute could get out of the Games. But a life indebted to the Capitol sounds far worse to her than an early death.

 

Their demonstrations for the Gamemakers come at the end of their training week. Erica and Dustin, being from District 12, are the last to go, and Erica knows the moment she walks in the door that nothing she does will impress them. They've grown restless and bored, and they pay her no attention at all when she takes her place, even though she announces her name loudly. 

Erica looks around the room thoughtfully. There are, of course, a bow and a quiver of arrows, but there are also training dummies still set up and, curiously enough, a set of paints. Erica investigates those, dipping her finger in to test the colors. 

She looks up again at the Gamemakers. They have started drinking, she sees, and this, this is what they think of her, of all the tributes. She is the dinner entertainment, and she's sure that they're privately betting amongst themselves over which tributes will die first. They don't have to live with the image of Anne, so drugged out on morphling that she had started crying in the middle of training, or go into an arena knowing they are most likely going to die. 

And Erica can't stand that. She looks at the paint on her skin and rubs her thumb and forefinger together thoughtfully. If the Gamemakers aren't going to actually watch her, she'll leave them with an image so strong they won't be able to forget her. 

She picks up the pot of red paint and walks to the nearest training dummy. She carefully paints the number nine, letting the paint drip like blood onto the floor. She returns to the bow and picks up a handful of arrows. 

The room has gone silent, she notices as she paces back as far as she can get from the dummy. Good. 

She notches the first arrow, sights along it, and lets out a slow, long breath.

The arrow soars neatly through the head of the dummy. 

She doesn't dare look up at the Gamemakers, even though they are so silent that the only sound in the room is Erica's breathing. She notches the next arrow, aiming this one for the dummy's wrist. It slides in with a sick thunk, and one of the Gamemakers lets out a tiny squeak. 

Erica lifts her bow a third time, but one of the Gamemakers – the head, she realizes when she looks around – says, "That's enough. That's enough!" 

She looks up at them, smiles sharply, and says, "May the odds be ever in your favor."

Some of them actually recoil at this, but the head Gamemaker is watching her again with that strange, unreadable expression in his pale eyes. Erica meets his gaze squarely, refusing to be intimidated by him, and holds his look for as long as she can. Then she turns, sets the bow down on the nearest table, and strides from the room. 

"Erica?" Dustin asks, rising to his feet when she exits into the hall. "You look – are you okay?"

Erica realizes that her hands are shaking. She curls them into fists and tries to smile. "I may have – lost my temper."

"Erica –" Dustin starts, but then the guard outside the door calls his name, and Dustin has to go, leaving Erica alone with just her trembling hands and a lingering sense of dread. 

 

Erica is brought back to the suite by a pair of Peacekeepers, and she curls up on the sofa, staring blankly at the wall. Dustin returns about fifteen minutes after her. He sits down carefully and leans against her shoulder. 

"I saw what you did," he says quietly. 

"It was stupid," she mutters. 

"It was brave." He bumps against her. "They watched me so close. They were expecting me to do something similar."

"What _did_ you do?" 

He smiles a little. "Threw some knives, tied some traps. Nothing that interesting. Think they were relieved."

Erica laughs despite herself. "It was still stupid."

"Maybe a little," Dustin concedes, and the two of them sit together in silence until the door slams open with a bang. 

"What did you _do_?" Gretchen demands, stalking into the suite. Marilyn and Sean trail behind her, looking as though they're trying hard to hide their smiles. "Erica!"

Erica sighs, anxiety returning in a sudden rush. "I'm sorry. I just – I don't know why I did it."

Gretchen drops into the seat next to the sofa and leans forward. "Erica, darling. You know that I am on your side, yes?"

Dustin straightens and scowls. "You're from the Capitol."

Gretchen's expression shifts, almost imperceptibly. "That doesn't mean," she says, in a voice that sounds nothing like her usual over-bright trill, "that I'm not on your side."

Erica blinks as Marilyn and Sean come to stand on either side of Gretchen, flanking her like bodyguards. "I – I know I shouldn't have –"

"No," Gretchen says, her affected voice back. "You shouldn't have."

“I don’t know.” Sean leans down and gently thumps Erica’s shoulder. “I think Thiel was impressed.”

“Impressed?” scoffs Gretchen. “Erica just hung herself! Doing something like that shows disdain for the Games –”

“Maybe that’s what I _wanted_ to do,” Erica suggests. 

“Erica!” Gretchen gasps. “You can’t do that so openly –”

“It’s better than hiding in the shadows forever,” Sean drawls. He has narrowed his eyes at her, and Erica feels weirdly as though she has walked in on a private argument. 

“Subtlety is not a bad thing,” Gretchen says. “We need her to _survive_ , Sean. What if they decide to punish her for that little stunt?”

"No matter what they decide," Marilyn says, fixing Sean, then Gretchen with a sharp look, "we can play it to our advantage."

"No one knows what happens in the evaluations except the Gamemakers," Gretchen explains. "We will find a way to spin it in your interviews tomorrow evening."

Erica hugs her knees and winces. "Right."

Sean glances at the clock and says, "They're going to be announcing training scores in an hour. Why don't you two get some rest until then?"

Erica and Dustin take it as the dismissal it is clearly meant to be and leave the room together. Erica is about to go to her bedroom when Dustin beckons to her. 

“Over here, he says, and he leads her to a staircase she hadn't even noticed before. It’s hidden a little behind a flowering plant, and when he pushes it open, she catches a hint of breeze. "It goes to the roof," he explains. "Force fields all around, but you can still see the Capitol. It's – well, it's nothing like home, but it’s kind of pretty."

Right now, Erica is sure that any reminder of home would be enough to break her, so she just follows him out the door. 

The first thing she's struck by is the light; even though it's growing towards dusk, the Capitol is still lit up brightly, electric lights from the windows casting eerie blue illumination over the streets. She walks to the edge of the roof and cautiously reaches out to prod at the barrier Dustin says is there. It stings her fingers, and she jerks back, startled. 

"Yeah, sorry," Dustin says, appearing at her shoulder. "I should have warned you."

Erica examines her skin, which looks just the same as always. "Do you think this is what Sean meant when he said the arena is bounded by a barrier?"

"Probably," Dustin says. "Stronger, I bet." He sits down cross-legged and leans back on his hands. "From here, it doesn't look so bad, does it?"

Erica looks down at the plaza below them and has to admit that from here, the garishly costumed Capitol citizens make a pretty splash of color against the white marble of the ground. "I suppose."

She can't stay still, though, too amped up from her evaluation to sit beside Dustin. Instead, she paces the perimeter of the roof, staring around at the buildings, at the people in the square, at the emblem of Panem decorating every flag. 

There's a small, nearly imperceptible waver in the air towards the far end of the roof. Erica frowns, blinking in case it's a trick of the eye – but no, it's still there: the tiniest flicker of something electric. 

"Dustin," she says without looking back. "Come look at this."

He joins her a moment later and looks in the direction of her pointing finger. "What is that?"

"It looks like a weakness in the barrier," Erica says. "There has to be a spot it can be deactivated, right?"

"I guess." Dustin reaches up as if to poke at the wavery spot, then seems to think the better of it. "I can't believe you noticed that."

Erica shrugs. "You have to notice things when you're hunting." She folds herself down into sitting position at the edge of the roof. "Everything has a weakness."

"Even the Capitol?" Dustin asks, gazing down at her. 

"Sure," Erica says, shrugging. "The Districts – they rely on us for everything, right? I mean, they don't grow or mine anything here, they don't have any water or woods to hunt in – so if you sever the connection between the Districts and Capitol, you destroy them. That's what they tried to do in the Rebellion."

"But they didn't succeed." Dustin kneels beside her and lowers his voice. "The Capitol crushed the Districts into submission and destroyed District 13."

"Just because something has a weakness doesn't mean it's easily defeated." Erica wraps her arms around her knees. "If nothing else, the Capitol is resilient."

"Yeah," agrees Dustin quietly. He rests a hand on her shoulder. "You're going to win. You know that, right?"

Erica looks up into Dustin's eyes and sees no trace of guile or insincerity. "Don't say that." She knows that's how the Games work – that if she wants to live, then Dustin has to die – but the thought of Dustin dying for her makes her hands shake and her mouth go dry. Dustin deserves to live just as much, if not more, than she does. 

Dustin raises his eyebrows. "I've had one whole week to watch the other tributes. You're definitely the best. No one else has your drive or your skill, Erica." He tries to smile, but it’s weak and fades quickly. "Promise me one thing?"

"Dustin –"

"Promise me," he says sharply. 

"All right, I promise!" she says, raising her hands. "What is it?"

He leans in and lowers his voice. "Bring the Capitol down."

 

Erica can't stop fiddling with the mockingjay pin when they return downstairs, running her finger around the edge. She has never thought about rebellion in any real, concrete terms – she just thinks of the unsuccessful one seventy-four years before and has always assumed that it was impossible. 

But what she had told Dustin is true – sever the connection between the Capitol and the Districts and the Capitol would be unable to provide for itself. They would break into chaos, its pampered citizens lost and confused. It could be done, Erica is sure of it; it would just take someone stronger and smarter than her to orchestrate it.

"Oh, there you are," Gretchen says, catching sight of them. "Come, come – they're about to announce the scores!"

They trail after her into the common area to join Marilyn and Sean, and they sit next to each other on the couch in jittery silence while Caesar and Claudius go through the same tired spiel they have recited every year for as long as Erica can remember. Finally, Caesar says, "Well, it's been a week since the tributes were brought to the Capitol – you've all seen the show they can put on, but can they fight? Here's how they've been judged."

It goes fairly predictably – Tyler from District 1 is scored a very respectable 10 out of 12, while his female counterpart received a 9. The Careers from 2 scored highly, but the curly-haired volunteer from 3 only managed a four, and the slim boy from 4 who had spoken to Erica and Dustin during training received a five. 

She sits up straighter when they get towards the later Districts – the siblings from 6 receive matching scores of seven, while Alice receives a 9. Erica claps a little, pleased for her, and figures Alice must have shown off some of her hand-to-hand skills.

"What do you think Anne is going to get?" Dustin asks, and Erica shrugs, narrowing her eyes at the screen. 

"Anne," says Caesar Flickerman, "from District 9 has received a training score of – four. Now, that's very low, isn't it?"

"Yes, and I'm frankly surprised that Mark from District 3 received a similarly low score," Claudius says as Erica lets out a low breath. "You don't usually see such low scores from volunteers."

"You knew she would get a low score." Dustin nudges her gently. "Didn't you?"

"She's going to be easy prey in the arena," Erica says quietly. "They're going to have to keep her drugged long enough to get her there – how long do you think she'll last?"

Dustin just shakes his head, mouth pressed in a thin line. Erica presses the pad of her index finger against the arrow clutched in the mockingjay's beak and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything else. 

The tributes from District 11 both get unusually high scores – eight for the boy and ten for the girl – and then Caesar Flickerman says, "And now for our final pair of tributes, the boy and girl on fire of District 12." He pauses dramatically, smiling like a loon. 

"Come _on_ ," Sean mutters, clenching his hands on his knees. 

"Dustin," Caesar says slowly, "of District 12, has received a training score of – eight!" 

Gretchen lets out a little cheer, and Marilyn leans over to squeeze Dustin's shoulder, murmuring, "That's good, that's very good."

"And, Erica Albright," says Caesar, still smiling that same manic grin, "has received a training score of – oh my – _eleven_!"

Erica lets out a breath, vision going hazy. _Eleven_ – the highest score of all the tributes. 

"Congratulations," Sean says, startling her out of her thoughts. "Now you're going to have to live up to it."

She tries to smile, but instead just feels like she's going to be ill. "Excuse me," she says, and she leaves the room to go sit on her bed for a while. 

She doesn't know how long she stares at the wall before Dustin knocks on the door to her room. "Erica?" he calls. "Can I come in?"

It takes two tries for her to get the word, "Sure," out, and she doesn't move as Dustin comes inside, looking hesitant. 

"It's a good score," he offers tentatively. "You don't – I mean, they must have been impressed by you."

"It means they think I'm the best killer," Erica whispers. "I – I know we have to, but there's a difference between hunting animals and hunting _people_. I don't want to do it, Dustin. I don't –" She covers her face with her hands. 

The bed dips a little as Dustin sits next to her. "I know."

"If I do it – if I – I'll be _one of them_." Erica shudders, swallowing hard against rising bile. "I'll be just as complicit as President Summers. More."

"So don't let him use you as a pawn," Dustin suggests. "Make sure people know you aren't his tool."

"Is that what you're going to do?" she asks, because they haven't discussed their upcoming interviews. She has discussed it a little with Sean, who just shrugged unhelpfully and told her to "be herself."

Dustin looks away, cheeks going a little pink. "I'm – Sean told me not to – I want to tell you, but he says it's better. If you don't know."

Erica raises her eyebrows. "I thought he wanted us to work together."

"That's not – it's complicated," Dustin says, wincing. "I'm sorry, Erica."

"It's fine." Erica lies back on her bed and stares up at the smooth, white ceiling. She closes her eyes, picturing the ceiling at home, which she has often stared at long into the night after Grace and Henry had fallen asleep on either side of her. She hopes that someone keeps them from watching the worst of the Games, desperately hopes they won't have to watch her kill or be killed. 

"Get some sleep." She hears Dustin get to his feet. "And Erica – you're going to be great."

"Thanks," Erica says, and she listens to the soft sound of Dustin's footsteps until they're gone. Outside, she can hear Sean humming again, slightly off-key. She frowns, trying to match the words to the song, and then Sean starts to sing – _Are you, are you_ _coming to the tree_ _where they strung up a man they say murdered threee_ – 

Gretchen says something, too indistinct for Erica to hear, and Sean falls silent again. Erica traces her fingers along her bedspread and mouths the rest of the verse, surprised that she still remembers the words after so many years. _Strange things did happen here_ – _no stranger would it be_ _if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

 

Erica spends three hours the next day being readied for her interview, her hair trimmed and her skin exfoliated and buffed until she is sure they must have stripped off her entire top layer. The stylists spray her with enough perfume for a village and spend nearly an hour applying make-up and tiny gems that she dearly hopes aren't real to her face and shoulders. She's sure that Marilyn has something special planned, but she can't help thinking that the price of just her beauty products could feed her family well for more than a year. 

She is stroking her finger over one of the jewels when Marilyn arrives in a whisper of fresh linen and clean air. "They're manufactured in District 3," Marilyn says, startling Erica. "For use in their computers."

"They're very –" Erica tries to think of a polite word to use and comes up with, "shiny."

Marilyn smiles knowingly. "I promise they are of very little monetary value." She holds out a dress to Erica, shaking it slightly. "Put this on."

Erica ducks behind the modesty screen to drop her robe and pull on the dress carefully. It's silky smooth, cool against her skin, and fits perfectly. The fabric is a deep shade of red, fading to burnt orange to rich gold, and it seems to shimmer as she moves. 

"This is beautiful," she tells Marilyn, stepping out from behind the screen. 

"It's stunning," Marilyn says, staring at Erica. "You look –" She hesitates, smiles. "Like a flame." 

Erica lets Marilyn move around her, adjusting the folds of her dress and tugging at the pins securing Erica's hair until her locks tumble around her face, wavy from the braids the stylists had put it in. Then, as the final touch, Marilyn takes Erica's pin from her abandoned shirt and sets it to rest just over her heart. 

"There." Marilyn touches the pin gently. "Now, there's one trick to this dress I want to show you before you go out," and Erica winces, because she recognizes that tone, but she nods anyway and lets Marilyn lead her towards the mirror. 

 

Erica's interview is second to last, and she spends the entire wait in the wings of the stage watching the little video screen, listening to each tribute speak in turn. Some are enthusiastic and determined (Tyler from District 1, the other Careers), others are more quietly threatening (the tiny, menacing girl from District 11), and others – 

Anne's answers during her interview are vague, dreamy, and clearly the words of a morphling. Caesar Flickerman tries to play off it, but then Anne pulls up her sleeve to scratch at her still-bandaged arms and he quickly ends the interview amidst the uncomfortable murmuring of the crowd. Anne drifts past the line, seemingly unconcerned, and Erica has to bite the inside of her lip to keep from saying something. 

The siblings from District 6 are both quiet, and Caesar seems to have real sympathy for them, even though it's clear that he doesn't think either of them are going to survive. The volunteer from District 3, Mark, receives a great deal of sympathy as well, with Caesar praising his nerve for volunteering. Mark makes no effort to give him useful answers for why he did so, though, just grunts and says a few words about his family. The knuckles on his hands are white from gripping the seat of the chair, and he's shaking when he comes back stage. For a moment, Erica thinks it's nerves; then she spots the muscle in Mark's jaw twitching and realizes that he's _angry_. 

She forgets about him during the interview with the boy from District 4, who is sweet and very personable. He quickly turns the interview back on Caesar, getting Caesar to talk about a party he had gone to in the Capitol a few weeks ago, and when Caesar realizes what had happened, he laughs. 

“We’ve got a real charmer on our hands here,” he tells the laughing audience, and the boy smiles. Erica revises her initial opinion of him; charm can be more dangerous than weapons, if used right.

Alice's interview goes well; she charms Caesar and the audience easily with her smile and her friendly personality, and when she passes by, Erica can't resist whispering, "Good job."

Alice smiles back and says, "Good luck," before being tugged away by her mentor.

When it comes time for Erica to step out on stage, she has to take a deep breath and clench her shaking hands into fists before she can shake out her dress the way Marilyn showed her, sending false flames creeping up her dress. 

"—Erica Albright, the Girl on Fire!" she hears Caesar says, and she walks out to shake his hand, her dress flaming like a torch. The audience gasps, and Caesar flinches back, eyes wide. 

"It won't burn you, I promise," Erica says, smiling, and the audience laughs as Caesar takes an exaggerated step forward. 

"If you say so," he says, and he shakes her hand, grip firm. She shakes her dress again, and the flames extinguish themselves, winking out like they never existed. She takes her seat and smiles at the flabbergasted Caesar. "My goodness, that is an astonishing dress," he says eventually, sitting down as well. "You look lovely, my dear."

"Thank you," Erica says. The weight of the crowd's gaze lingers on her, sends a shudder down her spine that she tamps down, hard. "It's kind of frightening to wear flames like that."

"And yet you do it so well." Caesar looks out over the audience, who cheer appreciatively. "Your dress in the procession – I don't think I've seen anything quite like it."

"Neither had I," Erica says, and the crowd laughs. "I wasn't sure if I believed my stylist when she said it wouldn't burn me."

"Yes, but you are very brave, aren't you?" Caesar beams at her. "I think we were all very struck by your bravery when your brother – it was your brother, yes? – ran up to you at the Reaping."

Erica swallows as the audience murmurs in agreement. "I'm – they want me to come home," she says. "My brother, and my sister, and my mother." She hesitates, remembers what Dustin had said – _don't be a pawn_ – and continues, "Life is hard in District 12. This dress I'm wearing – its cost could feed a family for months. If you don't have someone to help bring in money, it gets difficult. I’m all they have, you see."

Caesar looks mildly taken aback, but his smile never wavers. "So what did you tell your brother when you left?"

"I told them I could win," Erica says. "I told them – I told them I _would_ win.”

“So you think you can beat the other tributes?” Caesar asks. “You did score very highly.”

Erica looks down. “I – I don’t know,” she admits. “I have some skills, it’s true – but it’s different when you’re fighting another person. Someone your age. Someone I – someone I might have been friends with if we weren’t told to kill each other.” The audience has gone uncomfortably quiet, and Erica reaches up to touch the pin on her dress, feeling self-conscious. 

"Ah!" Caear says, grabbing for the subject change as thought it were a rope to pull him out of a mine shaft, "that pin. I noticed it early on – it's quite unusual."

"You like it?" Erica turns a little so that the pin catches the light. "It's from my district."

"It's a mockingjay, am I correct?" Caesar looks out over the murmuring, shifting audience, and smiles. "A brave choice of symbol, Erica."

"It keeps me strong," Erica says. "I represent more than myself here – I represent my district, everyone –" She swallows hard and forces herself to continue. "—everyone who has come here before me."

The room has gone deathly quiet. Erica chances a look at Caesar and is startled to see that there are tears in his eyes. "That was beautifully said," Caesar says thickly. "Don't you agree, ladies and gentleman?" and there's an answering wave of applause, more genuine and heartfelt than anything else Erica has heard that night. "Well, best of luck to you, Erica," Caesar continues, taking her hand in his. "May the odds be ever in your favor."

 

Erica stumbles off stage, ears ringing from the noise of the crowd, and passes Dustin just as he's about to go on. He looks pale and sick, his eyes over-bright, but he squeezes her arm as she passes and whispers, "You were good."

"Good luck," she murmurs in return, and she goes to sit with Sean, Gretchen, and Marilyn to watch Dustin's interview. 

Gretchen and Marilyn congratulate her, but Sean still seems on-edge, his hands drumming impatiently on his legs. Erica opens her mouth to ask him what's wrong, but she's drowned out by the roar of the crowd as Dustin walks out, all trace of nerves gone as he grins and waves to them. He looks – well, startlingly handsome, his smile wide and genuine, his eyes bright. 

"Dustin," Caesar says loudly as they shake hands. "Good to meet you – come, sit down."

Dustin sits, still smiling widely. "Good to be here, Caesar."

"Yes? So you're enjoying the Capitol?" 

"It's – very different from District 12," Dustin say, smile turning a little sad. "You have such wealth and luxury here – tell me, do I smell like flowers? I feel like I've smelled of flowers since I arrived here."

Erica has to bite back a smile as Dustin gestures Caesar close, offering his neck, and Caesar waggles his eyebrows at the cameras before leaning in. Dustin grins when Caesar moves away and says, "Am I right?"

"You're right," Caesar says, "you definitely smell of flowers! Must be the perfume of our sweet Capitol air."

The audience cheers loudly as Dustin throws his head back and laughs, open and infectious. Gretchen murmurs something approving, but Erica doesn't catch it, listening to Caesar as he asks another question. 

"So you're a good-looking boy, Dustin," Caesar says, smiling, "and you smell like flowers now – do you think the girls in District 12 will be clamoring to go out with you when you win?"

Dustin looks away. "I – they might. I never, uh, had a girlfriend, but. There was a girl I've –" Dustin lets out a breath and laughs nervously. "God, and she's watching this right now."

"Oh, a little nervous?" Caesar smiles. "Well, this is your chance, Dustin. Bear your heart – tell us about your girl."

"She's – she's special." Dustin's calm has vanished now, and he's twisting his hands together in his lap. "I've always liked her, but she's kind of private, you know? And she doesn't see just how – just how much people love her, how she can change a room just by walking in."

"Oh boy," Caesar says. "I can see why you're intimidated! But if you win this thing, you'll –"

"No," Dustin blurts out. "Sorry, I – no, that won't work."

"Are you sure?" Caesar laughs. "Your own mentor, Sean Parker, could tell you a thing or two about being a Victor and finding love."

Sean snorts but doesn't take his eyes off the screen. 

"I – yes," Dustin smiles a little, bitter and sad. "I know. But there's one problem."

"Indeed?" Caesar raises his eyebrows and looks out at the audience. "What's that?"

"She, uh. She came here with me," Dustin says, voice so quiet it’s barely audible, and Erica's vision blurs as the audience lets out a collective gasp before subsiding into whispers. Next to her, Sean is letting out a breath of relief, and Erica knows, _knows_ this is what Dustin wanted to tell her the night before. 

"That is extraordinarily bad luck," Caesar says, sounding genuinely sorry. "Best of luck to both of you, Dustin." 

The moment the interview ends, Erica turns on Sean and says, "That's your plan? Having Dustin confess his love to me? How is that supposed to help anyone?"

"It wasn't my idea," Sean says. "Well, it was, but not like you're –"

Erica clenches her hands. "You used him to make _me_ look more – more –"

"Desirable?" Sean asks, raising his eyebrows. "You're damn right I did. I took the Boy and Girl on Fire and turned them into the star-crossed lovers from District 12. It's television, Erica. If you don't think that's a good plan –"

"You _used_ him," Erica snaps. 

"He volunteered," Sean says, and Erica slumps back in her seat, defeated, as Dustin comes over. He still looks pale, and his hands are shaking. 

"Dustin," Erica says, getting to her feet. "I'm sorry Sean made you do this."

He looks at her, face empty of expression, and says, "It was my choice."

"Still, you shouldn't have had to do that." She rubs a hand over her face, ignoring Gretchen's interjection of, "Your make-up!" 

"We should get you two to bed," Sean says after a moment. "The Games start tomorrow at noon, and we want you at your best."

Erica huffs out a little breath and turns away from him. "Yeah. If not, that would make for bad television, after all."

"Erica," Sean says, but she ignores him, heading out of the building and forcing them to catch up with her. 

She stews quietly all the way through a conversationless dinner, still angry that Sean had made Dustin say that. He's priming her as the one to root for, the one that can inspire devotion in a boy like Dustin. It's a sound strategy, Erica can't deny that – but it raises her up at Dustin's expense. 

It's the first time since she arrived that she's gone to bed without her body aching, and she thinks that must be at least partially to blame for why she lies awake for what feels like at least an hour, listening to the silence of the room and missing the quiet breathing of Grace and Henry. She’s afraid to sleep, feeling the old nightmares creeping in around her, and she misses home more than ever. 

Finally, she climbs out of bed and slips on a pair of shoes to head for the roof, wanting to get some fresh air. To her surprise, Dustin is out there too, sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees and staring out over the city. Erica touches his shoulder gently and sits down next to him. "Hey."

"We're lucky to have gotten the top floor," Dustin observes, smiling a little wryly. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"It's too quiet in my room." Erica tilts her head back to look at the sky, but the stars are obscured by clouds. "What about you?"

"Just couldn't make my brain turn off," Dustin says. "I keep thinking."

"Yeah." Erica leans against him. "I really am sorry that Sean made you do that."

"He didn't – he –" Dustin pauses, then lets out a breath. "Thanks."

"It's just – it feels like playing into their hands, making up something like that." Erica shakes her head. "It's sick."

"It'll give you a better chance of surviving," says Dustin. "You're turning that down?"

"I –" Erica rubs her face. "No, not really, it's just that you deserve to survive, too."

Dustin doesn't look at her. "Sure."

They all deserve to survive, really. 

 

The next morning, Erica wakes up with a stone in the pit of her stomach and a tiredness headache. She eats a light breakfast sitting across from Dustin, and then dresses in the clothes Marilyn brings for her. Her hands are shaking so badly that it takes her three tries to secure the mockingjay pin to the front of her shirt, and she has to sit down on her bed to breathe. 

"Erica," Sean says, poking his head inside the door of her room. "It's time."

She nods and gets up, heart hammering. "I'm ready."

Sean pauses, looking back over his shoulder. "I know you are."

They're taken to an airfield on the outskirts of the Capitol, and Sean talks to Dustin for a minute before turning to Erica. 

"You're going to be amazing," Sean tells her, and he sounds so sincere that Erica is actually taken aback. "Just keep an eye out. I'll try to keep in touch with the sponsor gifts, but you're going to have to do most of it on your own."

"Most of what?" Erica asks, frowning at him. 

Sean taps Erica's pin gently. " There's a revolution brewing, Miss Albright, and you've just become the face of it."

"What?" Erica demands, staring at him. He looks at her, mouth pressed in a thin line, then he pulls her into a hug.

“We were waiting for someone to wear this,” he murmurs in her ear. “We needed someone brave and strong to wear it for the Games – it means Panem is ready for change. Just stay strong, Erica. We’ll be looking out for you.”

“ _What_?” Erica says again, but the Peacekeepers are coming to escort her to the hovercraft and they don’t have any more time to speak. Sean steps back, eyes narrowed. 

"Just keep a sharp eye out," Sean says. "Remember what Tori told you."

Erica gapes at him as the Peacekeepers take her arms, and she is led away to the hovercraft feeling like her world has been turned upside down. 

 

She has to squint against the sunlight when her plate brings her to the surface of the arena. The tributes are arranged in a semi-circle around the Cornucopia, this year built out of tumbling stonework rather than metal. Beyond that is a forest of trees she doesn't recognize, probably brought in from a lumber district. 

There are a bow and quiver sitting near the Cornucopia, ready for her, and she wonders if she should take the bait. The Cornucopia is always a blood bath, but she doesn't stand a chance if she doesn't get her hands on something she can use. 

She looks around the other tributes, searching to see if they are as nervous as she is. The boy tribute from District 3 — Mark — has a strangely defiant look in his eyes that sends a shiver down Erica's spine. She glances over towards Dustin, whose hands are clenched into fists. He sees her looking and gives her a small, strained smile. Alice smiles at Erica too, then seems to remember that they aren't meant to be friendly, the expression sliding off her face as she turns to face resolutely forward. 

Erica's stomach roils with anger. These are people she should have been friends with, people she should have been able to laugh with and joke with. She glances again at the boy from District 3, who is looking directly at her this time. He gives a tiny nod towards the far end of the arena before looking straight ahead. Erica blinks, not sure if she had imagined it.

Then the countdown begins.

The slim, polished boy from District 4 rubs his hands on his trousers nervously. The small, fierce girl from District 11 crouches down, ready to begin running. Erica stares straight ahead and wonders if she had correctly understood the boy from District 3. She doesn’t know if she can trust him; he had gotten the lowest score of all of them in evaluations, but she can read trouble in the tenseness of his limbs and the set of his brows, and Sean had warned to watch out for him.

But she doesn’t have time to mull over it; the announcer cries, “Go!” 

She takes a deep breath and runs, nearly slipping on the slick grass. Ahead of her, she can see the bow and a quiver, obviously meant for her, and she snatches them up before veering off in the direction of the forest. The small body of one of the younger tributes falls in front of her, his throat slashed. She ducks to avoid the wild swing of the girl from District 2 and grabs the pack clutched in the dead tribute's hands. Just ahead of her, the boy from District 6 throws himself in front of his little sister in time to catch the vicious upswing of an axe. His sister's scream is cut off a moment later, and Erica averts her eyes away from the thick spill of blood in the grass. 

Dustin shouts her name from somewhere, but she doesn't have time to look, too busy trying to escape the carnage. She trips a boy who is trying to lunge at her with a spear and kicks his hand as she leaps over him, the forest close enough that she can smell the leaves and the damp earth. 

She spares one look back, but doesn't see Dustin, not even a flash of his hair. Erica swallows hard and squeezes one hand tighter around the strap of her pack before turning and sprinting into the woods.

Mark is waiting in the trees, half-hidden behind the trunk of a large, red-barked tree. He has grabbed just one bag and has no visible weapon, and he looks very small and harmless. Erica draws up short, fingering the curve of her bow. She doesn’t want to shoot him, even if she knows it would be the smart thing to do. She hesitates, then gets ready to run –

“Wait,” Mark says, voice very quiet. “I need to talk to you.”

She stares at him. “About what? You want to team up? We never even _spoke_ during training.”

“No. Well, yes, but not — not for _that_.” He nods around them. "Not for the Games."

"Then for what?" she asks, narrowing her eyes. 

Mark doesn't answer. Instead, he's looking around at the trees apprehensively. Abruptly, he says, "We should be okay to talk right now, they'll be watching the Cornucopia."

It takes her a moment to understand what he means; but she realizes that he's right. Anyone who wanted to have a conversation the Capitol might not like would be smart to do it while all cameras an attention are fixed on the fight at the Cornucopia. "Are you sure?" she asks. 

“Almost completely sure.” He steps closer to her and lowers his voice until it's hardly more than a whisper. “These Games — I know you think it’s ridiculous. That it’s evil." She opens her mouth to respond, but he beats her to it. "And it is. You don’t make your citizens send their children to die. You _don’t_." He looks angry now, his eyes very dark in the murky light of the woods, and for a moment, Erica sees a spark of something dangerous lurking in his small frame. 

“Mark, you shouldn’t be saying this,” Erica says, voice shaking and her mouth dry. She can still hear the chaos at the Cornucopia behind her and hopes that Mark is right, hopes that no one is paying them any attention. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we can beat them at their own game, Erica.” He holds out his hand. “Want to join me?”

“Why me?” she asks, staring at his hand. “Wouldn’t it be better to do it on your own.”

“But no one would follow me.” Mark shakes his head derisively. “Likeability. You’re the Girl on Fire, Erica. You’re the one they’ll follow. You’re the one who can set us free.”

Behind her, she can hear sounds of footsteps and whoops. She gives up resisting and takes Mark's hand. "Fine," she says. 

Mark grins suddenly, sharp and terrible, and starts to run. 

 

The arena is strange, Erica realizes. It has the forest, yes, but they pass through clearings with tumbled-down stone and battered ruins. She is willing to bet that each one is full of simple traps for the stupider tributes, but that they could easily be turned into shelters or death traps by the smarter ones.

Mark ignores all of them, though, just lopes along easily. She is impressed by his stamina and reflects that he must have been hiding most of his abilities from the Gamemakers – a dangerous move, but smart, too. 

Eventually, they come to the end of the woods and enter a large field where a low, squat ruin rests, surrounded by pieces of crumbled stone. It's peaceful, worlds away from the chaotic cornucopia and the thick danger of the woods. 

"Here," Mark says. He pokes around the stones for a bit, then makes a small triumphant noise. Erica peers past him and sees that there is an entrance to the old building, hidden by grass and climbing plants. 

"Are you sure it won't collapse on us?" she asks dubiously.

"That wouldn't be very entertaining, now, would it?" he asks. Without waiting for a response, he climbs inside. Erica groans, but follows him. 

There is enough light streaming through the cracks in the stone for her to see by, and she watches as Mark paces the borders of the small room they're in. She still feels confused as to what, exactly is going on, but she isn't going to protest the moment of safety. She's sure that, if it came to it, she could overpower Mark, so she crouches down and waits for him to finish, head spinning with questions.

Erica scrapes at the ground while Mark looks around, waiting for him to finish whatever it is he's doing. He looks up after a few minutes and gives a small jerk of his head, and she bursts out, “But you volunteered!”

“Yes,” Mark says. “I did.”

“ _Why_?” Erica asks, not understanding. “If you hate the Games and the Capitol so much, why did you volunteer?”

Mark doesn’t say anything for a moment. He suddenly looks very distant, his face losing all expression. “Did you see the Reaping in my district?”

“I watched it after we arrived in the Capitol,” she says. “You volunteered almost immediately.”

Mark gives a small ghost of a smile. “Did you hear the name?” When she shakes her head, he nods slowly. “The person they called — he’s — Chris has suffered enough.”

“Chris – your mentor? What does Chris have to do with it?” she asks, now even more confused.

“The boy they called, he’s — Chris is very fond of him. And they — everyone thinks that when they’re older, they’ll get married. But he’s only fourteen, and Chris doesn’t think that anyone wants to love someone like him, and — he would have died in here. I couldn’t make Chris mentor —” Mark shakes his head violently. “Chris hates the Capitol more than anyone I know. After his Games, it took him two years before he could even speak again without prompting. If he had to coach the boy who has been in love with him since they were kids — I think that would have been too much.”

Erica stares at Mark, amazed by this sudden burst of eloquence. “And you decided to keep him from having to do that?”

“Yes,” Mark says. “And I told him I would help end the Games. We can do that, Erica.” He smiles, more genuinely than before, a flash of teeth and dimples that changed his whole face. “Let’s give them the world they deserve.”

"Why me?" Erica asks. "It can't just be because of the 'Girl on Fire' thing, that's all –" She waves her hand vaguely, trying to encompass the strangeness of stylists. 

Mark tilts his head, considering her. Then he opens his jacket and – there, pinned to his shirt, is a mockingjay pin. "Chris gave this to me," he says. "He told me you'd know what it meant."

"'Trust only the mockingjays,'" Erica says quietly. She reaches up self-consciously and rubs her fingers around the edges of her pin, thinking of what Sean had said. "I guess I do."

Mark waits, eyes narrowed. Erica sighs and says, "We've been brought into a rebellion."

"I know _that_ ," Mark says, rolling his eyes, and Erica suddenly wants to hit him. "Chris told me that we would be safe as long as the Cornucopia fighting was going on, that was why I wanted to talk to you as soon as possible."

"Did he tell you anything else?" Erica asks. "Like, what we're supposed to _do_?"

"Head for the edges of the arena," he says promptly. "From there, we're on our own."

“Just the two of us?” She raises her eyebrows. “We’re not allowed to save anyone else?”

“Do you trust anyone else?”

“I don’t even know if I can trust _you_ ,” she points out. “What about Dustin? What about the girl from your District?”

“We shouldn’t go to any unnecessary risk,” Mark says, mouth set in a mulish line. 

Erica lets out a breath of exasperation. She's sure that Tori, Sean, and Chris would not have sent them to each other – and isn't that a strange thought, that people from such distant Districts could have helped push them together – if they hadn't believed they could help each other, but she's discouraged by the lack of any firmer plans. It's all well and good to declare war on the Capitol – but what good are they trapped in the arena?

She picks up the bag she had snatched from the Cornucopia and opens it up. Inside she finds a length of rope; a flint, which she experimentally tries against the stone of the floor; an empty water bottle; some linen cloth; a needle; and what looks like dried meat. "Not bad," she mutters to herself before putting everything back inside the bag. She leans over Mark and seizes his bag to look in it, but aside from what looks like a waterproof jacket and a pair of boots, it's empty. 

"Great," she says. She gets to her feet. "I want to look around here a bit, make sure that I know a way out," she tells Mark. 

He gets to his feet. "I'll come with you."

"Mark –"

"We're working together now, remember?" he says, and he twitches his head towards the walls. 

Somehow, she understands that to mean that the cameras are watching – so she forces a smile and says, "You first, then."

There are three ways out of their little ruin, including the way they came in, and Erica carefully moves anything that might get in the way should they have to run. Mark watches with a vaguely impressed eye as she first checks for traps before moving anything. Twice, she just barely discovers a trigger that would no doubt have unleashed something terrible upon them and avoids setting it off. 

"All right," she says eventually once she's through checking. "We can probably rest for a bit, but we're going to have to find fresh water at some point."

"And food," Mark says.

Erica shrugs. "I can set some traps nearby –"

"That'll give away our hiding place," Mark interrupts. "We'll stay here for the night, then move on. We could catch something now."

"By we, you mean me, right?" Erica asks dryly. 

Mark grins a little. "I'm better with my brain than my muscles.”

They venture out of their ruin into the trees, where Erica finds a few bushes with berries she recognizes from home. She sets Mark to collecting them while she listens for the sound of animals moving. 

The shriek of a bird over head startles her, and she whips around, arrow notched before she can think, searching out the source of the noise. A flock of birds, startled by something, come streaming out of the tops of the trees, and Erica shoots two down before they've vanished from sight. 

"We should go before whatever scared them finds us," she whispers to Mark, and he nods, eyes wide. 

They make a hasty retreat back to their ruin, only stopping to collect some wood for a small fire. Mark, as it turns out, did manage to grab a knife when one of the other tributes threw it at him, hitting his pack instead, so Erica skins the birds and cooks them over the fire before passing one to Mark so they can eat in companionable silence. 

"What do you know about mockingjays?" Erica asks Mark eventually, licking her fingers free of grease. 

Mark looks at her sideways. "They were something the Capitol intended to use to break down the will of the Districts," he says. "Like the jabberjays – the ones that mimic sounds? We have a lot of them in my District. They wanted to breed birds that were more easily controlled. Instead, they got the mockingjays, who not only can't imitate human speech, but have spread through the Districts." He shrugs. "Mockingjays are proof that the Capitol is fallible."

Erica remembers going into the forest when she was young with her mother at her side and listening to the mockingjays imitate her mother's singing as they collected berries and herbs for home. She had always thought of them only as pretty birds with interesting capabilities, though she had known vaguely that they hadn't always been just pretty. 

"What about District 13?" Erica asks. "Aren't they proof that the Capitol is more powerful than we could ever be?"

"Things grow back, given time," Mark says."And people are stronger than they know."

Erica thinks about that as she struggles to doze off that night, too on-edge to sleep properly. She hopes that Sean and Chris and Tori know what they're doing – she hopes that they are able to bring out that hidden strength Mark believes in. 

She finally manages to sleep sometime after she hears the announcements for the first day's deaths – five in total, a surprisingly low number. None of them are Dustin or Alice. 

 

Erica wakes with a jolt and sit up, looking around for the source of the noise that had woken her. She hears it again, out in the trees – the sound of running. She lunges forward, hitting Mark awake. “Mark,” she hisses. “Someone’s here.”

Mark comes awake instantly and scrambles to his feet. “Okay,” he says softly. “Run that way?” He points to one of the exits from their ruin.

She nods and they begin to run, Mark lagging a little behind her. She can hear the sounds of someone following them, and she puts on speed. A moment later they come to the edge of a cliff overlooking a fast-running river, and Erica skids to a halt, heart pounding. She grabs her bow from her shoulder and one of her arrows, lifting it and waiting. Mark stops at her side, panting hard. He pulls out his knife with shaking hands and raises it in front of his face.

“Don’t miss,” Mark says, voice surprisingly even. “I don’t know how good I’ll be with this knife.”

Erica suppresses the wild urge to laugh and scans the edge of the forest. A moment later, the boy from District 4 stumbles out of the trees, a cut bleeding freely on his cheek. He raises his hands when he sees Erica and calls, “Please, I’m — I’m running from the Careers. Please, don’t shoot me, I won’t hurt you.”

Erica exchanges glances with Mark, who gives a tiny shrug, before slowly lowering her bow.

Mark says, “It's Eduardo, right?”

“Yeah,” Eduardo says, stepping forward. “That’s — that’s me, please, we have to go.”

She listens and hears the sound of people in the forest behind Eduardo, whooping and jeering. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, fine, you can join us. Come on.”

Eduardo flashes her a small, vibrant smile, and jogs forward to join them. A moment later, the tall, red-headed tribute from District 2 steps out of the trees, a spear in his hand. He smirked when he sees them, lined up nice and easy for him. Erica moves to raise her bow again, but Mark grabs her hand and Eduardo’s and says, “Trust me,” before tugging them off the edge of the cliff to plunge into the swift, icy water.

Erica can't breathe – can't see. The water rushes around her, buffeting her to the surface where she takes a gasping breath of air before being sucked back under. She flails wildly, trying to gain control, but she has never learned to swim in the landlocked District 12. Someone – Eduardo – grabs a hold of her wrist and hauls her up, and she collapses on the shore, coughing and choking on river water. 

"Come on," Mark says in her ear. "We need to find shelter."

Erica breathes out a shuddery breath and nods before hauling herself to her feet and running after him, Eduardo lagging a little behind her. The sun is only just rising, the air still cool with dew, and there's a faint mist rising from the ground. Erica keeps an eye out for traps or precarious patches of mud, but doesn't spot anything suspicious. 

"I see something up ahead," Mark calls back, and he turns left. 

There's a cave, mostly hidden by trees, tucked away under the lip of a hill. It looks safe enough, though Erica has to check for herself, clutching her sodden jacket closer to her as she does. When she's through, she nods to Mark, and he collapses on the floor gratefully, panting. 

The three of them huddle in the cave, soaking wet and shivering. Erica pulls out the flint from her bag and manages to strike a small fire that they crowd around, holding their hands out to the warmth. Close up, Eduardo looks awful, the cut on his face gruesome and ugly, and his cheeks flushed with fever. 

Mark seems to have noticed too, because he says, “Come here,” to Eduardo, and pulls the needle out of their bag. Eduardo flinches away, shaking his head.

“It’s fine,” he says, lifting his hand self consciously to touch the cut. Mark smacks his hand away and looks to Erica for help.

“We don’t have medicine and that’s going to get infected soon.” Eduardo still looks doubtful, so she rested her hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently. "It's better than leaving it."

Eduardo sighs and says, "Fine." 

Mark pulls out the length of linen from the bag. It's wet, but still clean, and he slices off a long strip with his knife, lip caught between his teeth. Erica watches as he unravels the fabric until he has a long piece of thread to use and says, “This is going to hurt a lot. I'm sorry.”

“Okay," Eduardo says faintly. Erica give him a piece of firewood to bite, and she takes his hand as Mark threads the needle. When it slides into Eduardo’s skin, he squeezes her hand so hard that she nearly cries out, but he stays still and doesn't make a sound until Mark has finished. 

To Erica's surprise, Mark dampens a piece of cloth and dabs it gently against Eduardo's temple, his face weirdly sad. Eduardo leans into his touch, eyes drooping closed, and says, "Thank you."

Mark freezes for a moment, then says, "You're welcome."

Erica gets to her feet as quietly as she can and takes their water container and the one that Eduardo has down to the river. She kneels at the edge and is refilling them when she hears the cannons boom. She looks up to see the faces of the dead tributes, counts them – only three today, she sees. That still leaves thirteen, she thinks, and she glances back over her shoulder towards the cave. She can't see the fire, which is a good sign, but she needs to think of a way to disguise their passing. 

She spends a few minutes masking their footprints and collecting plants to camouflage their hiding spot. It's eerily silent, no sound of animals at all, and she wonders if there _are_ things to eat in the arena. She hasn't seen anything yet, but she'll have to catch something soon. Their already meager supplies are going to run out soon, and she is sure that neither Mark nor Eduardo will be any good at hunting. 

Out of sheer bloody-mindedness, she sets a few traps near their cave, figuring they will catch either an animal or another tribute. Small pit traps might not _hold_ a human, she thinks as she covers up the last one with branches and leaves, but perhaps they'll at least twist their ankle.

She returns to the cave, pleased with her accomplishments, and discovered that Eduardo has passed out, no doubt from the pain and exhaustion. Mark is stroking his hair gently, his expression soft. He catches her looking and glares defiantly before looking back down at Eduardo. After a moment, he says, “He shouldn’t be here.”

“I know,” Erica says quietly, and she watches them for a while, melancholy sitting heavily on her breast. Someone like Eduardo – someone so obviously sheltered – should have had someone to take his place. She wonders why no one had stepped up in his place, why he didn't have anyone like Mark to give himself up. 

"I talked to him a little, during training," Mark says. "He wanted to know what I was doing, and he's – he's really smart, but he's not a fighter."

"Neither are you," Erica points out. 

Mark rolls his eyes. "No, but I'm smart. If Chris hadn't told me to – I would have just waited everyone out."

"You think you could have lasted?" 

"I'm smart," Mark says again, meeting her eyes. "You know the ground around the Cornucopia is mined? So that anyone who tries to start running early doesn't get to? You could dig those up, if you knew how to re-arm them."

"And you do?" Erica asks skeptically. 

"Which District do you think makes them?" Mark shakes his head, smirking. "It would be easy."

"Easy?" Erica stares at him. "Maybe for you."

"It's what I do," Mark says. "Just like shooting a bow is easy for you."

Erica concedes this point. She shrugs off her jacket after a moment and settles it closer to the fire so it can dry. "Should we tell him what we're doing?"

Mark looks down at Eduardo. "He's from District 4," he says doubtfully. "They're usually a Career district."

Neither of them say the obvious; that Eduardo is so obviously not a Career, his inexperience and naiveté as bright as a beacon. Still, District 4 is loyal, and Eduardo is clearly from wealth. It is more than likely he was raised to respect and revere the Capitol as much as any Career. 

"We'll decide in the morning," Erica says, and she leans back against the cave wall to doze. 

They stay in the cave for two days, eating whatever Erica's traps catch and waiting for Eduardo's wound to heal enough for them to go back on the move. Eduardo develops a fever halfway through the second day, and Mark and Erica take turns sneaking down to the river to get water to wash his face with. 

There is only one more death, the girl from District 10 dying late into the second day. Erica can't help the sigh of relief she lets out when she sees that it isn't Dustin, and she ducks back inside the cave to sit next to Eduardo, who had woken up at the sound of the cannon. 

"Who was it?" he asks in a raspy voice, straightening up. Mark had gone down to the river for more water and to collect the animals from Erica's traps, leaving Eduardo slumped against the side of the cave. "Not –"

"No," Erica says. "He'll be back soon."

Eduardo relaxes. "It's not that – he was just nice to me, during training. I could tell that he didn't want to be, but he was."

"It's all right," Erica says softly. She sits down next to Eduardo so he can lean on her. "It's okay to like people."

Eduardo laughs softly, but winces when it pulls at his stitches. "It, uh. Wasn't Dustin either, was it?"

"No." Erica closes her eyes. "It wasn't."

"Is it true about the two of you?" Eduardo asks sleepily. "The whole star-crossed lovers thing?"

Erica hesitates, not wanting to lie – but if Dustin could, she reasoned, so could she. "Yes," she says. "It's – I wish things were different."

"Me too," Eduardo says, eyes drifting shut again. "I wish you two could be happy."

When Erica looks up, Mark is standing at the entrance of the cave, his expression curiously blank. After a moment, he kneels down next to her and whispers, "You should go find Dustin."

"But –" Erica starts, frowning. 

"We'll stay here as long as we can," Mark interrupts. "You want to save him too, don't you?"

Erica stares at him. "Mark, we'll never find each other again."

Mark shakes his head. "Maybe not. But you love Dustin, don't you?"

And Erica can't say _no_ or pretend that she doesn't care about Dustin, because she _doesn't_ want to leave Dustin behind, but she isn’t in love with him, not the way Mark clearly thinks she is. "Mark, I can’t leave you behind –"

"Go," he says, and he pulls his knife out, holding it out handle-first. "Take this. We’ll wait here for you."

"I can't," Erica says, shaking her head. "You need something to defend yourself with."

"You'll need to mark the path you took," he says stubbornly.

"I have my arrows. Don't worry about me, Mark, I can handle myself." She looks down at the sleeping Eduardo. "Take care of him."

"Bring Dustin back," Mark says, and he shoves her out of the cave.

 

She doesn't see anyone for most of the next day, doesn't even hear anyone moving in the woods. No more deaths are announced, and she imagines the Gamemakers are getting anxious; more than half of the tributes are still alive. 

Which is why she's unsurprised when she is awoken the next morning to the sound of fire crackling. 

She straightens up in the tree she had tied herself to with her jacket and looks around for the source of the noise. There is a flicker of flames out in the distant trees, hazy smoke rising up to the treetops. Erica coughs as some of the smoke reaches her eyes and unties herself before sliding down her tree.

She hits the ground running, hitching her pack up her shoulder as she goes. The soft earth slips beneath her feet and she nearly falls, choking on dust and smoke. Her ankle throbs uncomfortably, but she doesn't have time to prod at it and see if it's twisted or just bruised. The heat of the fire is beginning to lick at her back, and her forehead begins to drip with sweat. 

Her lungs burning, she runs as fast as she can, ignoring the pain in her ankle and trying not to breathe in too much smoke. The air is going hazy, her head feeling as though it will detach itself from her neck and float away, but she stumbles on, seeing the pale fingers of daylight slipping in through the trees ahead of her. 

The riverbank sneaks up on her unexpectedly, and she falls on the slick rock, tumbling down to land in the icy wate and managing to bang every one of her limbs on the way down. She gasps, sucking in water that makes her choke, and she flails desperately, trying to get back to the air. She resurfaces after a moment, spluttering, and catches sight of someone else running from the burning trees. 

Alice. 

"Alice!" Erica yells. "Alice!"

Alice's head jerks up, and she looks around until she catches sight of Erica. "Erica!" Alice wades into the river, thigh-deep, and reaches out her hand. "Come on!"

Erica flails her way through the water until she can grab a hold of Alice. Alice hauls her out and back onto the rocks, where they sit and listen to the crackle of the fire in the trees behind them. Alice has a rip in her shirt, what looks like a burn on her upper thigh, and some of her hair has been burned off.

"That fire came out of nowhere," Alice says, prodding at her burn. "You think anyone got caught in it?"

Erica shudders and tries not to think of Mark and Eduardo trapped in their cave with no way out. "I hope not."

Alice looks at her with an odd expression on her face. "You hope not?"

"Burning is painful," Erica says, and she pushes herself to her feet. She holds her hand out to Alice. "We should get out of here."

"Well, I lost my hiding spot," Alice says grumpily, letting Erica help her up. "I was doing all right."

Erica doesn't pay her much attention, listening instead for the sound of cannons. The fire in the forest behind them hasn't spread much, and she hopes that the Gamemakers didn't decide to flush Eduardo and Mark from safety. 

"Erica?" Alice says, voice sounding very distant. "Erica!"

"What?" Erica asks, turning, and Alice points across the river. 

There, standing on the opposite bank, is Tyler and the girl from District 2. 

"Hey, Twelve!" calls the girl mockingly. "Where's your boyfriend? Left him behind to die?"

Erica goes cold. “Where is he?” she shouts. “Do you know where he is?”

Alice grabs her arm and hisses, " _Don’t_ ," and yanks her away into the edges of the still burning forest, the taunts of the girl from District 2 following them.

The air is thick with smoke and dust, and Erica can't stop coughing, choking with every breath she takes. Alice's grip is tight, almost bruising, and Erica stumbles along in her wake, not sure where they're going. 

"Alice –"

"I know somewhere we can go!" Alice calls back, and she plunges deeper into the forest, close enough to the fire that the heat blisters Erica's skin. 

They're following the line of the river, Erica realizes, catching a glimpse of the water through the trees. It's smart not to travel in easy sight, and no one else would be crazy enough to try to outrun the fire. Alice seems unconcerned by their danger, just sprinting ahead with no sign of discomfort while Erica gasps away behind her. 

"Here," Alice says, and she pulls Erica out into another of those small clearings in the woods. 

This one is smaller than the first one mark and Erica had found, but it has a lake that takes up most of the space. Part of the river branches off to flow into it, and Erica takes the opportunity to fall to her knees beside it and drink until she no longer feels like she's eating ash. Alice collapses onto the ground next to Erica, arm over her eyes, and lets out a breath. 

"This is a good find," Erica says. She cups her hands and carefully ferries water from the river to pour over the burn on Alice's leg. Alice hisses, but doesn't twitch, even when Erica pokes at it cautiously to see the damage. "Not too bad."

"You see a lot of burns in District 12?" Alice asks, leaning up on to her elbows and eying Erica curiously. 

Erica shrugs, not looking at her. "My father was killed in a mine explosion when I was young. A lot of people were injured. They drafted all of the kids who had any talent to help take care of them." Erica swallows. "I was mostly good at holding them still."

"We make fabric in 8," Alice says. "Sometimes in the factories – there are accidents, but nothing like that." She touches Erica's shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago." Erica scoots down to the river to wash her face and hands. "But thanks."

They stitch up the tear in Alice's shirt before moving into the part of the forest untouched by the fire. Alice isn't as good at moving silently as Erica is, but she picks it up quickly when Erica shows her how to place her feet. They don't see anyone, but they do hear the sound of a cannon as the day begins to wane into night. Erica, who hasn't eaten since the day before, shoots what looks like a large rabbit, and skins it, much to Alice's disgust. 

"You want to eat, don't you?" Erica asks, laughing a little at Alice's expression. 

"I don't usually see my food before I eat it," Alice says defensively.

Erica finds herself humming as she cooks their meat over the fire, and Alice joins in when she realizes the song, her voice thin and wavery but pretty nonetheless. _Are you, are you coming to the tree where the dead man called out for his love to flee?_

“We used to sing that song in the factories,” Alice says later as they’re eating. “Until they made us stop.”

“My father used to sing it,” Erica says, picking at the scraps of meat still clinging to the bone. “Only at home, though. I haven’t even thought about it in years, but –”

“It’s an appropriate song,” Alice says wryly, tossing her bones into the dying fire. 

That night, they sleep nestled in the roots of a large tree, camouflaged by a blanket of leaves, and Erica sleeps better than she has since she left home, comforted by having a friend at her side. 

Erica wakes first as the dawn light slants through the leaves covering them. She carefully lifts herself up, doing her best not to jostle Alice too much, and slips out down to the lake to drink some water. 

The clearing is filled with early morning mist, and Erica moves slowly, hand on her bow. No one else seems to be stirring, though, so Erica takes the time to wash her face and soak the hem of her shirt so she can clean Alice's wound. She unbraids her hair and runs her fingers through the strands until she feels less grimy and filthy. 

She is in the process of rinsing out her jacket when she hears someone moving in the grass behind her. She whirls around, hand going for her bow – but it's just Alice, rubbing sleep from her eyes and looking groggy. 

"What are you doing out here?" Alice asks, looking around the clearing. "It's early still."

"It's better to be on the move," Erica says. "But I was just getting water."

"Oh." Alice sits down next to Erica and smiles sheepishly. "I was just afraid that – you know."

"Yeah." Erica wrings out her jacket and folds it over her shoulder. "We probably have some time before anyone else starts to wake up, though."

Alice nods and scoots towards the lake to splash her face with water. "Probably."

"Do you know what happened to the other tributes?" Erica asks after a moment. "Did you see?"

"Districts 1 and 2 have teamed up. The District 11 tributes are sticking together as far as I know – the girl got the boy from 2 real good the first day, he's probably still healing." Alice scrapes at the dirt caking her arms. "I think they're camping out along the river to pick people off when they come for water."

"What about Dustin?" Erica asks as casually as she can. "Do you know where he is?"

Alice gives Erica a small smile, but it fades after a moment. "I haven't seen him since the third day. He's hurt, though. The girl from District 1 got him in the leg with a sword. I saw him limp away from the river, but he's in trouble if he doesn't get help soon."

Erica swallows and looks down at her hands. "But he hasn't died yet."

"No," Alice agrees. "Not yet."

In unspoken agreement, the two of them follow the river, but stick to the trees for cover. They take a few breaks to clean Alice's leg and eat some of the dried meat from Erica's pack. The skin around the burn has turned pink, and Erica tries not to show how worried she is as she examines it that night. 

"Don't hide it from me," says Alice. "I can tell it's not good."

"I think you got dirt in it," Erica says softly. "But you'll be fine."

"Sure." Alice shifts her leg, wincing. "That's why my leg feels like it's still on fire."

Erica snorts involuntarily, then covers her mouth. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine." She leans back against a tree and sighs. "Infected leg is a really boring way to die, though."

"You're not going to die," Erica says. She leans over to touch Alice's forehead and feels that she's sweating, feverish. She forces a smile. "You'll be fine."

Alice is restless that night, tossing and turning on the ground while Erica stays awake to keep watch over her. She has to pinch herself to stay awake, but by the time the sun starts to rise again, the fever seems to have burned out of Alice's body. Erica brings Alice down to the river to drink, supporting her until Alice has had her fill. 

"How are you feeling?" Erica asks when Alice pulls back, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Better?"

"Yes, a little," Alice says. She scrubs at her face. "Still tired."

"We'll take it slowly." Erica helps Alice to her feet. "Let me know if you need a break."

"I'll be fine." Alice bumps up against Erica's shoulder. "Let's go find Dustin."

 

They're taking a break in a tiny clearing around midday to eat lunch when there's the sound of a cannon firing. Alice and Erica both look at each other. 

"Who do you think –?" 

"Not Dustin," Alice says, touching Erica's hand. "I'm sure it isn't."

"Yeah." Erica picks at the meat of the small squirrel she had shot, appetite suddenly gone. "We shouldn't stay in one place for too long, though, if people have started dying again."

Alice nods in agreement, and they clean up all traces of their presence, burying the ashes from their fire and the bones from their meal in the soft dirt. 

They have only been walking for about half an hour when Erica hears someone coming towards their direction. Whoever it is isn't careful about it, snapping twigs and leaves under their feet. Erica waves frantically at Alice and Alice goes very still, her eyes wide. 

A moment later, a small, ragged figure comes into sight, shaking and muttering to herself. It takes Erica a moment to recognize her outside of the training room, but then she spots the arm bandages and realizes – it's Anne. 

"Anne?" she says quietly, reaching out to be sure Alice is at her side. 

"Who's Anne?" Anne asks, staring at them. She scratches at her arms distractedly. "I'm looking for my knife, have you seen my knife?"

"I can't believe she's still alive," Alice murmurs. 

"Oh, look, my knife," Anne says, and she draws a vicious-looking knife out of her belt. The blade is stained a dull, rusty red, and Erica swallows hard. "I got it right here." She smiles at it.

"Anne," Erica says, and Anne startles, looking up. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, fine," Anne says vaguely, then she shakes her head. "No, no, not fine, not fine."

"Erica," Alice hisses. "Her hands – they're covered in blood."

Erica looks closer and sees that Alice is right. She had thought the brown of Anne’s fingers was from dirt, but now that they’re a little closer, she can see that some of the blood is still drying. "She must have killed the person we heard the cannon for," Erica murmurs. She lifts up her hands to show Anne she's not armed and says, "Anne, we're not going to hurt you."

Anne stares at them, wild-eyed, and mumbles, "Please, I don't – I didn't want to be here." She holds up her knife with shaking hands. The white bandages around her wrists are grimy and filthy with blood and dirt. Unraveled threads trail loosely down. She is ashen and sweating, her words coming out slurred as she babbles on. "I wanted to step off my plate but they told me they'd kill them, they'd _hurt_ them if I didn't and –"

"Anne," Erica says, stepping forward. "Anne, are you all right?"

"She's detoxing," Alice hisses from behind her. "Be careful."

"—and they pumped me with that _poison_ ," Anne says, voice getting louder. "They told me to fight, so I'm going to fight –" and she lifts her knife higher, mouth set. "I'm sorry, this isn't me, I swear it isn't me, I just can't _think_ straight –"

Someone slams into Anne from behind, and Eric startles back, yanking an arrow out of her quiver as Tyler wrestles Anne to the ground, using his knee to pin her down. Anne is snarling ferally, scratching at his face with one hand and trying to stab him in the neck with the other. Tyler twists her wrist up brutally, and there's a vicious, horrible snap that makes Erica's stomach turn. Anne screams.

"Tyler!" Erica shouts, trying to aim her bow but not getting a clear shot. "This isn't –"

But Anne is screaming too loudly for Erica to be heard, her shriek startling birds out of the trees. Tyler makes a sound half-way between a growl and a grunt and covers her mouth with his hand. Alice tries to start forward, shouting Tyler’s name. Erica holds her back, not wanting Alice to get in the middle of that fight. 

“Erica,” Alice hisses. 

“You’ll be killed!”

“He’s going to _kill her_ ,” Alice snaps. 

Erica knows Alice has a point, but Tyler is bigger than the two of them combined. It would take more than Alice’s fighting skills to take him down. 

"What did you do to KC?" Tyler snarls. " _What did you do to her?_ "

"She screamed for you at the end," Anne gasps when Tyler pulls his hand away. "When she realized she was going to die. The ones like you never realize they're going to die –"

"You're sick," he spits. He rears back, about to hit her, and Alice throws herself past Erica to yank Tyler off her.

Tyler backhands Alice, sending her stumbling back a few paces, and pulls out a knife from his belt. "Stay out of this, Eight," he growls. "You didn't see what she did to KC."

"You're torturing her!" Alice shouts. 

"She ripped out KC's _heart_ ," Tyler shouts, and he feints towards her. Anne has curled up into a ball on the ground, clutching at her wrist and moaning. Erica drops to her knees next to Anne and gently takes her arm, ducking when Anne thrashes out towards her. "She painted KC's face with her own blood!"

"They drove her crazy!" Alice throws back, kicking out and catching Tyler in the stomach. The breath wooshes out of him, and he doubles over. "They dosed her with so much morphling she doesn't even know her own name anymore!"

"She was crazy when she got here!" Tyler swipes at Alice with the knife. "It's an _honor_ to fight for your District –"

"No, it's not," Alice shouts. "It's murder! If you want to blame someone for KC's death, blame idiots like you who think sending children to _kill each other_ is noble."

Tyler's face contorts with rage, and his muscles bunch in a way that strikes some deeply ingrained danger sense in Erica’s brain. Erica raises her bow and fires – but a moment too late. 

The knife arcs along its path, graceful and almost beautiful in its utter, implacable surety. Erica shouts out a warning, but Alice doesn't duck out of the way in time. Time seems to freeze as the knife thuds heavily into Alice's flesh, embedding itself in her chest.

And then Alice gasps, startled, and stumbles back a few steps, and Erica is _furious_. For the first time in her life, she sees someone and knows she can kill him without a second thought. She fires another arrow into Tyler's chest as Alice falls to her knees, hands wrapped around the hilt of the knife now buried between her ribs. 

Tyler collapses to the ground, gasping and clutching at one the arrows, but Erica pays him no mind. Alice pulls the knife out, face going white as blood begins to gush from the wound, and says, "Erica?"

"Alice, we need to get out of here," Erica says, choking on her tears as she runs to Alice's side. "I'm sorry, Alice –"

"Okay," Alice says weakly. She grabs onto Erica's arm. "I understand."

"Put your arm around my shoulders," Erica says. "Before he gets the arrows out."

Alice leans heavily against Erica as they run, leaving Anne and Tyler on the ground behind them. Erica chances a look back and sees Anne pulling herself to her feet, her knife in her uninjured arm.

They run until Alice says, "Stop, stop." She unhooks her arm from Erica's neck and sinks to her knees, her breath coming harsh and loud in the silence. Erica catches her arms and lowers Alice gently to the ground, her eyes stinging with tears. "Alice –"

"I can't run anymore," Alice gasps. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, it's not your fault," Erica says. "You're hurt."

"No, it's fine," Alice says, voice choked. She's trembling, and her face has gone ashen. "Erica, don't –"

But Erica has already opened Alice's jacket and found the bloody wound in her abdomen. Erica has never been that good at medicine, but she knows that kind of wound is death, no matter what. "Alice, this – I shouldn't have made you run, I'm so sorry."

"I'm fine," Alice says, and it's obvious she doesn't believe it anymore than Erica herself. Erica tries to press her hands to the wound, knowing even as she does that it's hopeless, and Alice shakes her head. "Erica, you have to get out of here. If you stay here, Tyler or Anne could find you. You have to find Dustin."

"Why are you helping me?" Erica takes one of Alice's hands in hers and squeezes. Alice tries to squeeze back, but her grip is so weak that her hand just slips from Erica's. "Alice, no –"

"I believe in the mockingjays," Alice says, and she smiles, bright and beautiful. "Look."

Erica looks and sees, settled in the palm of Alice's other hand, a small, golden mockingjay pin. Erica bites her lip against the sudden rush of sadness and traces her thumb around the edge of it. "You're one of them?"

"I had to keep you safe," Alice says. Her voice is getting more distant now, thin and reedy. "You don't see it, do you? How important you are."

"I'm not special," Erica whispers, tears starting to fall despite herself. "I'm not, I'm nothing –"

"You’re not _nothing_ ,” Alice says fiercely. “We are all something, Erica, and you – you’re the Girl on Fire. You’re the herald of the rebellion.”

"I don't understand." Erica strokes Alice's hair with shaking fingers, swallowing against the sick, tight feeling in her throat. "Why me?"

Alice looks up towards Erica. "Because you wore the mockingjay proudly." She lets out a small breath, sinking further into Erica's lap, eyes fluttering shut. "We’ve been waiting for ages, waiting for a sign that the Districts are ready to fight for their freedom. They told us, wait for the mockingjay. I thought I was dreaming, when I saw you wearing it,” she adds, choking out a laugh. “I used to dream about it all the time, about when we’d finally be told it was time to revolt. Of course it happened once I was in the Games with you.”

Erica wants to protest that it hadn't been her choice, that she had been _given_ the pin and had worn it, not out of any rebellious instinct, but out of loyalty to her district. But she can't tear away Alice's last hope, not when Alice is smiling up at the trees. 

"It isn't so bad," Alice says faintly. Erica reaches down to take Alice's hand in hers again, and Alice's smile wavers a little. "Thank you for staying with me."

"Of course," Erica says, and she holds Alice in her arms until Alice's breathing stops and her eyes go blank. 

Then, Erica lets herself cry bitter, furious tears until her face is hot and her eyes feel raw. She hates Tori, suddenly, and Sean and Marilyn, and everyone who gave her the pin without telling her what it meant to people like Alice. They used her as a vessel for their message and did not care about the weight they were laying on Erica’s shoulders. They aren't the ones who have to watch people die, who have to carry the burden of someone else's sacrifice on their soul.

She closes Alice's eyes gently, careful not to smear any of the blood on her hands onto Alice's skin. She settles Alice back on the grass and, after a moment, decides that isn't enough. 

The mockingjay pin is still in Alice's hand. Erica tugs it out gently and folds Alice's hands over her chest before setting the pin between them. They show the bodies when they take them away, and Erica wants them to see what Alice died for. She wants these people, the ones Alice seemed to believe were inspired by Erica, to be inspired by Alice too. 

Out of long habit, she kisses three fingers on her right hand and lifts them in farewell; then she picks up her bag and her bow and goes looking for Dustin. 

 

Erica hears three cannon booms while she's washing the blood from her hands, and she bites her lip hard before retreating back to one of the tumble-down ruins for the night. 

She's drifting in and out of sleep when she hears an odd beeping noise. A cautious peek out of her hiding place reveals a small, silver parachute drifting down towards her. She reaches out and it lands in her hand, light as a feather. 

Attached to the parachute is a small tin. Erica looks inside and sees what looks like healing salve. A note is affixed to the lid. 

_Riots in 8 & 9, rumblings in 2. Good job so far. Keep following the river. Medicine is for him._ _– S_

Erica rolls her eyes affectionately and tucks the tin away in her bag. 

It's lonely, traveling without Alice, and it leaves Erica with far too much time to brood. She hopes her mother had sent Grace and Henry from the room when Alice died; she hopes that Alice's family understood. 

She's so lost in her own thoughts that she nearly misses the faint smear of old blood on the rocks. She crouches to look at it, then looks around. "Dustin?"

There is no answer. 

She straightens up and looks for other signs of Dustin's passing. There are a few more drops of blood further away from the water, and the bushes look like someone passed through them. 

Erica hitches her bag further up her back and follows her instincts, tracing the path of battered foliage until she sees one of the ruins peeking out of the trees ahead of her. "Dustin!"

Again, no one answers her, but she knows, she just _knows_ that Dustin is in there. She starts running, ignoring the discomfort of the quiver bouncing against her back. "Dustin!"

"Erica?" comes the weak reply, and Erica sees him lying in the shade of a large rock. "Erica, oh my – is that you?"

Erica falls to her knees beside him and seizes his hand. "I thought I'd never find you."

Dustin looks terrible, pale and sweaty and filthy and unkempt. He has propped his leg out in front of him, and the smell of fetid flesh is rising from the wound. But he smiles at her, wide and brilliant, and says, "It took you long enough."

"I know, I'm so sorry," Erica says. She slings her pack to the ground and reaches into her bag for the tin of medicine. "Sean got a sponsor to send this. I guess he knew I'd find you today."

"Oh, good," Dustin says when he sees it. "I've been keeping it clean as best I can, but it doesn't look good."

"No," Erica agrees. She can hardly look at it as she carefully spreads the salve over the brutal wound, her stomach turning at the sight of it. "How have you been feeding yourself?"

"Traps." Dustin hisses when the salve touches his open flesh. "But I haven't been able to check them the last couple of days."

"Well, you've got me now," Erica says. "I'm going to take care of you."

Erica checks Dustin's traps as soon as she feels safe leaving him alone and finds that he has managed to snare a couple of smaller animals. She cuts them loose and brings them back to Dustin, who makes a face.

"Oh, yay," he says sleepily. "Animal guts."

"You need to eat," Erica says, but she can't help smiling. "How have you stayed hidden this long?"

"There's a hole under one of these rocks," Dustin explains. "Whenever I heard someone coming, I'd climb down there. Haven't seen or heard anyone for a day or two though."

"You didn't hide when I arrived," Erica points out. 

"I told you," Dustin says. "I've been tired the last couple of days." 

Erica presses a hand to his chest to feel his heart beating in double time. "Dustin –"

"I know. I thought – I heard your voice and I thought I was hallucinating," he admits. "But I figured that if I had to die, it wasn't a bad way to go."

"You don't have to say that," Erica says. 

"It's true," Dustin insists. "It was all true, Erica. Every bit of it."

It takes her a moment to realize what he means; then she goes cold. "What?"

"I was going to – but I wasn't brave enough." He grins weakly. "But now, you know, I might not get a chance to tell you again."

"Shut up," Erica says, shaking her head. "You'll get a chance." She silences him by handing him a squirrel to skin and starts setting up the fire for their meal. 

"What have you been doing?" Dustin asks finally. 

Erica, grateful for the change of subject, tells him what she has done since the start of the games – omitting a few details of her alliance with Mark, naturally. Dustin winces when he hears the part about Anne and Alice, and reaches out to squeeze her ankle. 

"I'm sorry about Alice," he says quietly. "I know you liked her."

"I did." Erica looks down at the fire, which is burning merrily now. "And poor Anne."

Dustin rubs his thumb over her anklebone, but doesn't bother trying to find any platitudes for the mad girl. 

They eat quietly. Erica lets Dustin have half of her meal when he eyes it, saying, "Keep your strength up."

Dustin sinks back against the moss when he's done eating, wincing. “You should just leave me,” he says. “I’ll hold you back.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Erica says fiercely, taking his hand. “We’re in this together, right?”

He looks up at her with fever-bright eyes and says nonsensically, “I always loved your eyes.” He reaches up to brush a strand of hair from her face, his fingers gentle. “I know you never really — noticed me before. But I always noticed you.” He smiles a little and then closes his eyes. “You should go.”

“I noticed you, Dustin,” Erica says, squeezing his hand. “I noticed."

He doesn’t answer, his breathing coming harsh and ragged. She bites her lip to keep from crying and tugs him so he's lying across her lap, slack face looking peaceful. “You have to survive,” she whispers, stroking his hair back from his forehead. “We're getting out of here. Together.”

She sings to him when he grows restless, quietly so that her voice doesn’t carry. _Are you, are you coming to the tree where I told you to run so we’d both be free?_ He settles back against her, breathing coming easier, and she falls silent again. When the sun starts to wane, she lies down next to Dustin and cushions her head on his shoulder. 

She's awoken by another parachute a few hours later. Investigation reveals that this tin is full of clear broth, and Erica sets it aside for later. This note reads, _Play up the reunited lovers thing. How about a kiss? – S_ and, beneath that, _p.s. M & E coming your way._

Dustin stirs when she settles back down and asks sleepily, "What is it?"

"Just a note from Sean," she says. "Go back to sleep."

 

Dustin's leg looks surprisingly better in the morning, although he still winces every time it's jostled. His fever seems to have gone down, too, and Erica reflects wryly that she never would have thought that her time in the Games would have involved this much nursing. 

He laughs when she relates this and says, "Yeah, you were never any good at that when we were young."

"Thanks." Erica rolls her eyes. "You were good, though. Everyone wanted you to take care of them."

Dustin shrugs. "I'm nice."

"I'm nice!" Erica protests.

"You're intimidating," Dustin corrects. "It's fine, it's one of the things I like about you." He nods over at the parachute still resting next to him. "You gonna tell me what that is?"

"Soup," Erica says. "And this." She hands him the note. 

Dustin reads it, then laughs. "Well?" he says, tilting his head to the side and smiling at her. "How about it?"

Erica considers him for a moment, then leans in until her mouth is just a hair away from Dustin's and murmurs as softly as she can, "M and E are Mark from 3 and Eduardo from 4. Sean wants me to escape the arena with Mark."

When she pulls back, Dustin looks absolutely dumbfounded. She nods once and smiles at him before picking up the tin of soup and handing it to him. "Drink up. You need your strength."

Dustin scowls adorably, but does as she says, staring at her the whole time. When he's finished drinking the soup, he sets the tin aside and says, "I don't understand."

Erica lets herself casually touch the mockingjay pin and Dustin's eyes go wide. She lies back down next to him and whispers in his ear, "There's a revolution in motion. We're part of it now."

Dustin puts his arm around her shoulder and hugs her close to his chest. "I don't know how I got so lucky with you," he murmurs. "I didn't know you even knew who I was."

"Of course I did," Erica says, twisting her neck to look up at him. "Do you know how it felt, hearing _your_ name called at the Reaping? Anyone else, _anyone_ else, I might have been able to leave them behind. But not you."

"Why not?"

"Because you're a good person. You gave me extra food to bring to my brother and sister." Erica licks her lips and moves so that she can listen to Dustin's heart beating steadily, if a little too quickly. "I need you to be safe."

"You're a good person, too," Dustin says, stroking her hair. “You took such good care of your brother and sister, you know that? My mom always wanted to help you out more, but we couldn’t afford it.”

Erica sighs. “I told you, we got by.”

“Even so.” He winds one strand of her hair around his finger. “I paid attention, you know.”

She shifts a little. “It wasn’t always easy,” she allows. “Grace and Henry can be a handful.”

“Yeah?” Dustin asks, which she takes as her cue to tell a story about them. She decides to tell the story of the time the twins decided to adopt what they thought was a stray cat, but turned out to belong to Billy White from the other side of town.

As she talks, Dustin’s hand gradually slows, and the rise and fall of his chest evens out to a slow, steady pace. Erica chances a look and sees that he has fallen asleep again, though he seems restless. She carefully extracts herself and picks up the now-empty tin of soup. She heads down to the river to fill the tin with water and, after a moment's thought, soaks her jacket in the water as well. 

Dustin moans in his sleep when Erica presses the damp fabric to his leg, and she sighs. "You have to get better," she tells him. "I need you."

He sleeps on, a little more peacefully now, and she allows herself to stroke his hair back from his face before she gets up again, this time to go reset the traps around their little hiding place. 

She's in the middle of repairing the last one when she hears someone else moving nearby. She freezes and curses the fact she had left her bow behind with Dustin. She just hopes that whoever it is doesn't have a range weapon. 

She picks up a branch and tests its strength before starting to pace soundlessly in the direction of the voices. But then she hears, "—to follow the river, but we haven't found anything – ouch!"

There is a pause, and then Mark says, "This is one of Erica's traps."

"How do you know?" Eduardo asks. 

"There were dozens of these around the cave," says Mark. "She's nearby. Keep looking."

Erica catches a glimpse of Eduardo's profile through the trees and hurries towards them. She slides out in front of them and says, "Or I'll find you, since you're being loud enough to attract all the remaining tributes."

Eduardo gasps and startles back, hand over his heart, but Mark just smiles and says, "Good to see you."

"I can't believe you made it this far alive," Erica says. "I thought you were going to wait in the cave."

"You took too long," Mark says, and he pushes past her. "Dustin's this way?"

"Yeah. Come on." She leads them deeper into the trees to where their little ruin is situated and finds Dustin sitting up, her bow held awkwardly in his hands. 

He relaxes when he sees them and sets it down. "I don't think I could fire that anyway," he says wryly. "You make a lot of noise."

Erica jerks her head back. "Blame them."

"Sorry," Eduardo says sheepishly. 

Erica sits down and gestures for Mark and Eduardo to join her. "So what's the plan?" she asks them eagerly. "Have you –" She gestures vaguely, trying to sign _parachute._

"Follow the river," Mark says, rolling his eyes. 

"Right," Erica says, and she moves to check on Dustin's wound while Mark and Eduardo settle in. "Do you feel any better?"

"Much." He reaches up to twitch her hair behind her ear. "And you've brought us some strays."

"Thought you might be getting bored of me," she teases. "Do you think you'll be good to walk tomorrow?"

"Let me try to stand," Dustin says. She gives him her hand and lets him lean on her as he struggles to his feet. He lets out a small noise when he leans on it, and Erica looks at him in concern. "I'm fine," he says. "Just – haven't stood in a few days."

They take a few slow steps, Dustin gradually putting more and more of his weight on his own two feet. He's pale and sweating, but he's moving without too much obvious difficulty. "Yeah," he says eventually. "I'll be okay."

"You're sure?" Erica asks doubtfully. "You don't look so good –"

"I'll be fine," he insists. He looks back at Mark and Eduardo. "You're feeling better, too?"

The cut on Eduardo's cheek has healed completely, leaving barely a scar to remember it by. "Yes," he says, blinking slowly. "Thank you."

"Have you seen any of the other remaining tributes?" Erica asks Mark. 

"We were passed by the girl from 7, but she didn't see us," Mark says, throwing a look at Eduardo. "We came across some abandoned fires, but I'm not sure whose they are."

"Anywhere near here?"

"No, further back along the river." Mark narrows his eyes at her. "It wasn't you?"

"I buried my fires," Erica says, a shiver of apprehension running through her. "It was someone else. Was this recent?"

"Yeah," Mark says. "One was still burning when I saw it."

Erica takes a look at Dustin, who is leaning heavily against the ragged rock, and says, "We'll need to be ready to go, then."

Dustin frowns. "You think they'll find us?"

"The bigger the group, the bigger the danger," says Erica. "We're not safe in one place. One more night here. Then we need to go."

"I agree," Mark says, and Eduardo nods half a beat later. They exchange looks, and Erica has to hide her smile at the way they look at each other now. She doesn't miss how close they've sat next to each other, either, or how Mark is always half-watching Eduardo. 

"Okay," Erica says. "I'll check the traps at sunset. Tomorrow morning, we move."

Mark volunteers to take the first watch that night. Erica doesn't fall asleep right away and stays up with Mark instead. "You seem to have done all right for yourself."

"Eduardo is better than he looks," Mark says, mouth twisting up a little. "A couple of days after you left, he smelled that fire and got us out of the cave and down to the water. He swims really well."

"District 4," Erica says, shrugging. 

"Yeah." Mark looks down at Eduardo, who is curled up close to him, one hand resting on Mark's ankle. "Do you wonder, ever, what their plan is?" He doesn't have to say Sean or Chris's names; Erica knows exactly what he means. "If we really are doing any good?"

Erica sighs. "Yeah. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I just hope _they_ know what they're doing."

"Me too," Mark says. 

 

They leave their hiding place early the next morning. Erica carefully obscures any of the signs that they were there before wrapping Dustin's leg with her jacket. He winces at the pressure, but he's able to walk when she steps away from him. "I can make it," he says stubbornly when he catches Erica watching him.

"Don't be an idiot," Mark snaps, crossing his arms. "You're hurt."

"Aw, I didn't know you cared." Dustin limps forward carefully and nods. "I'll be fine."

Mark opens his mouth to argue, and Eduardo lays a hand on his shoulder. "Mark," he says quietly. "We can take a break if Dustin needs it, but we need to get moving."

"I won't hold you back," Dustin says, glaring at Mark. "I swear."

Erica takes Dustin's hand and says, "Say something if you're not feeling well."

"Of course," Dustin says, and she knows he never will. 

They walk and they walk and they walk. Erica lags behind them to clean up any tell-tale signs of their passing and to keep an eye out for any followers. It's after they stop for a quick meal that she spots the quick flutter of someone moving in the trees behind them. She stops and waits, listening, and then spots a flash of dark hair. The girl from District 11.

Erica mutters a curse under her breath before turning and hurrying to catch up with Mark. She lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and murmurs, "We have a shadow."

Mark jumps, but she presses down hard. "No," she says. "Don't – we can't let her know we saw her."

"Do you know who it is?" he asks softly as Eduardo and Dustin crowd in closer. 

"The girl from 11," Erica says. "I saw her hair."

"Christy?" Eduardo asks. "That explains the fires.”

They all look at him. He goes a little red. "She – she kept playing at the fire station during training. I asked her about it."

Mark frowns at him. Erica presses down harder on his shoulder to forestall anything he might say. "We just need to keep an eye out for her," she says. "Make sure she doesn't know what we're doing."

"Can't we bring her with us?" Eduardo asks. 

"Not until we know more about her," Erica says. "Do you think we can trust her?"

Eduardo looks torn, but finally he admits, "I don't know."

"Then we don't let her in," Erica says. "Not until we know."

"Agreed," Mark says. Eduardo sighs, but nods, and Dustin just shrugs. 

Erica catches a few more glimpses of Christy as they go on, but the girl is keeping her distance, staying just close enough to know where they're going, but not close enough that Erica feels threatened. She doesn't want to hurt Christy without provocation, but she hates the slippery, slimy feeling of being watched. 

"How much farther?" Dustin asks, late into the day. He's pale and sweating, more breathless than the rest of them, but he hasn't said a word of complaint thus far. "Do you know, Mark?"

"It can't be too far," Erica says optimistically. "We're pretty far from the Cornucopia, aren't we?"

"Yes," Mark says. "But I don't know – who knows how large the arena is?"

"Can we rest, then?" Dustin asks, and Erica turns to look at him just as his knees buckle. She lunges forward and catches him under the arms before he can hit the ground. 

"Mark, Eduardo?" she grunts. "A little help?"

Eduardo hurries to her side and helps her settle Dustin down against the roots of a large tree. Dustin is trembling from exertion, and he looks horribly ashen up close. Erica strokes his hair back from his face. He smiles up at her and says, "Sorry."

"You should have told us you were tired." Erica looks around and sees that Mark is gathering wood for a fire. "We'll stay here tonight. I'll go find us food."

"Be careful," Dustin says. "Take someone with you."

"I can take care of myself," Erica reminds him. 

He catches her hand in his. "Please."

Eduardo touches her shoulder gently and says, "I'll go with you. Mark can watch Dustin."

"All right," Erica says. She adjusts her bow and quiver. "Stick close to me."

"Wardo?" Mark asks as they pass him. "You're –"

"It's better to go in pairs," Eduardo says. He touches the back of Mark's neck gently. "We'll be back soon."

"Don't do anything stupid," Mark says. 

Erica rolls her eyes at Eduardo. He grins, then quickly wipes his face clear of expression as he says, "We will."

They head out into the trees together, not speaking. Then Eduardo says abruptly, “I’ve been wondering – I watched your Reaping.”

“Yeah?” Erica asks, eyeing him warily. “What about it?”

“That gesture they did before you left.” Eduardo mimes it with his left hand. “What does it mean?”

“It’s how we say goodbye.” Erica rubs her thumb along the curve of her bow. “Usually at funerals.”

“Oh,” Eduardo says in a small voice. “I’m – sorry I asked.”

Erica shrugs and gestures him on.

Eduardo makes too much noise, every twig and leaf crackling under his feet. Erica tries to tune it out, but she's sure that he is scaring off all the animals around them. Finally, she turns and says, "Eduardo, I'm sorry, but you're making a lot of noise."

He flushes immediately and stops moving. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Erica says. "Stay here. I won't go too far, I promise."

"We should stick together," Eduardo protests. 

"I won't catch anything if you're with me." Erica unhooks her bow from her shoulder. "I'll stay within earshot."

"Okay," he says reluctantly. "Yell if you need me."

"Same to you," she replies, and she paces away from him as silently as she can, keeping an ear out. 

She stays true to her word and doesn't go far from Eduardo. She shoots down a bird from a tree and is eyeing the bushes for signs of any animals when she hears something larger moving behind her. 

She turns, raising her bow, and sees Eduardo coming out of the trees. Erica sighs and lowers her bow. "Eduardo, I thought I told you to wait."

"Oh, you did," comes a singsong, unfamiliar voice, and the girl from District 11 steps into view from behind Eduardo. She has a long, vicious knife in her hand and its tip is currently pressed to Eduardo's side. "You should be more careful, Girl on Fire."

"Christy," Erica says quietly. "Let him go."

"I don't think I will," Christy says, smiling with all her teeth. "I've been following you closely, you see, and you may think you're being smart, but I've figured it out. You're trying to find the edge of the arena, aren't you?"

"What would be the point of that?" Erica stalls. 

"I don't know," Christy admits. "But you have a plan. I want in."

"I'm afraid we can't do that," Erica says. "Only people we trust."

"Okay, let's try a new tactic," Christy says, and with a swift kick, she brings Eduardo to his knees. She seizes his hair, yanking his head back, and lays the edge of the knife against Eduardo's throat. "Let me join you or he dies."

"We'll just kill you once you let him go," Erica says. 

"Please," Christy sneers. "You don't have the guts. You couldn't even finish Tyler off after you'd shot him. _I_ had to kill the idiot."

"I might not, but Mark could," Erica says. 

Christy rolls her eyes. "Then give me your word."

"No," Erica snaps. 

Christy presses her knife harder against Eduardo's skin. He whimpers as a thin trickle of blood drips down the column of his neck. "Try again."

Erica pulls up her bow. "Take your knife away."

"Do you think you can shoot me faster than I can slit his throat?" Christy smiles. "You're good, I know that. But so am I."

"It doesn't matter, because I'll kill you if you kill him," Erica says, hoping Christy won’t see through the bluff. 

"And Eduardo will still be dead," Christy says. "Could you live with that, Erica?"

And the truth is, of course, that Erica couldn't; that she can't imagine going back to Mark and Dustin without Eduardo, even though she hardly knows him. But she can't trust Christy to keep her word, either, so she doesn't move, just stares Christy down. 

"Just tell her," Eduardo says suddenly. "Tell her what the plan is."

"What?" Erica asks, staring at him. "You want me to tell _her_?"

"It's no big deal," Eduardo tells Christy. "It's just a theory."

"A theory?" Christy asks, raising her eyebrows. 

"About how the barrier works," Eduardo babbles. "Mark, he's from District 3, he thought maybe he could manipulate it."

" _How_?" Christy demands.

"I don't know!" Eduardo says as her knife cuts deeper. "I just know he wanted to test it, see if he could use it as a weapon."

Christy looks sharply at Erica, who immediately schools her face into an expression of annoyance. She's impressed by Eduardo's bluff; it sounds just believable enough, just crazy enough that it could be acceptable as the mad theory of a desperate tribute. "A weapon?" Christy asks interestedly. She loosens her grip a little. "How –"

Erica's arrow hits her in the shoulder holding the knife, and Christy startles, the knife falling from her hands. Eduardo lunges forward, knocking the knife further away from her as he scrambles to his feet, and he starts to run back in the direction they left Mark and Dustin. Erica hesitates, wondering if she should try to make a grab for the knife, but Christy is already pulling the arrow from her shoulder, so Erica takes off after Eduardo. 

"What's going on?" Dustin demands when Erica and Eduardo find him. "Erica?"

"Christy," Erica gasps when she realizes that Eduardo is too out of breath to answer. "Come on, we need to go."

Mark curses and kicks over the wood for the fire before grabbing his pack. "Okay, let's go."

Erica gives Dustin her hand and helps him upright. "Are you okay?"

Dustin stares at her for a moment, then shakes his head. "No."

"What?" Erica asks, startled. 

"I'm not coming with you. I'll hold her off from following you." Dustin points at the knife he has in his belt. "I'll slow her down." 

"Dustin –"

"I'll weigh you down," Dustin says, and he smiles bravely. "Kiss for luck?"

Erica bites her lip, then nods. He leans in cautiously, raising one hand to cup her jaw, and he kisses her gently, lips barely touching hers. "Run fast," he whispers against her mouth, and then he gives her a little shove. 

"Go," he says. " _Go_!" and Mark is grabbing Erica's hand, pulling her away, and Erica can hear Christy moving in the trees nearby, and she doesn't want to go, she _can't_ go, but Mark is dragging her along and she drags her feet until she can no longer see Dustin's hair through the trees. 

They run until Erica's chest burns, until Eduardo is barely stumbling along. The forest starts to thin, and Mark shouts back, "I think we're nearly there."

He throws a rock ahead of him, and – it bounces.

Erica pulls up short next to him and stares. "It's here."

"About ten feet ahead of us," Mark agrees, looking down at the rock he'd thrown. 

"How are we going to get out?" Erica asks, frowning as she scans the air. 

And then she sees it – the small wavery spot in the air above them. "Everything has a weakness," she murmurs. 

"Yeah," Mark agrees. "What are you going to do?"

"Playing a hunch," Erica says. She takes her bow from her shoulder and removes an arrow from her quiver. They won't have long, she knows that – if the Capitol has any sense, they will have already sent in the Peacekeepers to end the Games and stop them. "Stand back."

Mark obediently backs up a few steps, dragging Eduardo with him. Erica lets out a slow, even breath and lifts her bow. "Sean," she says, "you had better be ready."

And she aims her arrow at the barrier's weakness. 

She breathes out, once.

And fires. 

 

Erica awakes to the unpleasant feeling of Mark slapping her across the face. She smacks his hand away from her and struggles to sit up. "What happened?"

"Electrical discharge from the barrier. You were only out for a few minutes. But hey." Mark picks up a rock and throws it. It sails through the air unencumbered. "You broke part of it, at least." 

"We should go, then," Erica says, tilting her head to listen. Something is off; the air has thickened, somehow, and there's a low thrumming noise in the air. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Mark asks, looking around. 

Erica looks up at the sky. "That."

A hovercraft is approaching, its engines thrumming loudly. It doesn't look like one of the Capitol vehicles, its craftsmanship much more old-fashioned than the slick steel of Capitol work. There’s a crude mockingjay painted in gold on the bottom.

"Friends of yours?" Eduardo shouts over the grinding mechanical noise.

"I hope so," Mark says, and he helps Erica to her feet as the hovercraft comes lower. The bottom hatch opens a moment later and a rope ladder tumbles down. Sean sticks his head out and scowls at them

"Come on!" he shouts, waving at them. "Took you long enough!"

Erica sprints towards the craft, Mark hot on her heels. She scrambles up the ladder, quiver bumping awkwardly against her back and elbow. She clings to the first person she runs into, and it takes her a moment to realize that it's Chris. He rubs her back gently and whispers, "I got you, you're safe."

She can hear someone else shouting, and she turns to see Mark at the lip of the craft. He is leaning out as far as he can with Sean clinging to his arm and shouting, "Wardo! _Eduardo_!"

Erica breaks free of Chris's grip and hurries to join Mark. Below them, Eduardo is shaking his head. "I have to take care of Dustin!" he calls, his smile brave and completely false. "You have to get out, you're more important than me."

"No!" Mark shouts. "No, you can make it, Eduardo!" Out of the trees behind Eduardo come the Peacekeepers, white uniforms stark against the greenery. "Eduardo!"

Eduardo kisses the first three fingers on his hand and lifts it to them in farewell; then the Peacekeepers descend upon him, one bringing him to his knees with a vicious swing of his truncheon.

Mark lets out a furious, wounded noise, and tries to leap out of the hovercraft. Erica catches him around the waist and pulls him back, tears stinging at her eyes as Eduardo vanishes from their sight. Mark turns his face into her shoulder and falls still, save for the trembling of his hands. 

"He'll be all right," Erica says, though her words sound flat and unconvincing even to herself. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries not to think of Dustin, weak still and injured, tries not to think what the Capitol will do to him. If he's still alive. "They'll be all right."

Mark nods into her neck, and she strokes his back until he can lift his face away. "Thank you," he says quietly without looking at her, then gets up to find a seat by one of the windows. 

Erica stands too and turns towards where Sean, Marilyn, and Chris are clustered in a little circle. She moves towards them, mouth pressed in a tight line, and when Chris sees her coming, he gestures to the others. They fall silent and turn to face her. She's viciously pleased to see fear and guilt in their expressions, and she wonders how dangerous she looks, still smeared in dirt and blood and vibrating with rage. 

"You couldn't have told us this was your plan?" she demands, looking from face to face. "We could have save more people – we could have saved _Dustin_ –"

"You were more important –" Sean starts. 

"I am _not_ more important than him, I'm _not_ ," Erica snarls. "That's how the Capitol thinks, Sean. Everyone is worth saving."

"Erica," Marilyn says, taking a step forward. 

"And you!" Erica turns on her. "You made me the face of this – this _revolution_ without telling me!"

"And this is why," Marilyn says calmly, not backing down an inch. "Because you believe everyone is worth saving. Because you'll care for the body of a fallen friend or foe. Because you're not afraid to wear the mockingjay. We needed someone like _you_ , Erica. We needed someone who could show the other Districts that we're all in this together. That they don't need to be afraid."

"A lot of good I did inside the arena," Erica snaps. 

"But you _did_ ," Marilyn says. "Do you know how weakened the Capitol is now? There were riots in nearly all of the Districts this year. Districts 8 and 9 cut off all contact with the Capitol. We even have people in Districts 1 and 4 now, thanks to what they've seen this year."

"I don't understand," Erica says. 

"Why does the Capitol televise the Games?" Sean asks. "To show the Districts their best and brightest tearing each other apart for glory. Do you know what they saw this year?"

"They saw you helping people," Marilyn answers when Erica remains silent. "They saw a girl from 9 go insane because the Capitol leveraged her family against her. They saw a boy from 1 lose his calm when his friend was brutally murdered. They saw two boys from 3 and 4 fall in love. They saw people sacrifice themselves to save their friends. This year they saw hope and love."

Erica slumps a little and stares at her hands. "And that was enough."

"We've been planting the seeds of rebellion for years," Sean says. "This was just –" He smiles suddenly. "The reaping of our efforts."

“Why rescue us, though? Why _me_? I haven’t done anything to deserve this.”

“Maybe not,” Sean allows. “But you were the first person to wear the symbol of this rebellion openly. For better or worse, yours is the face people will remember as the start. Sending you out with that pin on your dress was a call to arms, and every one of our allies knew that.”

“So you used me,” Erica says. “You used _us_. How does that make you any better than the Capitol?”

“Well,” Sean says, “you’re alive, aren’t you?”

Erica sighs and turns away. She has a thousand more questions she wants to asks still, but first, she needs to know – "What about Dustin and Eduardo?"

"We still have people in the Capitol," Chris says, speaking for the first time. He gives her a small smile. "We'll rescue them, Erica. But we need time to regroup, to contact our cells in the other Districts, and to evacuate your family and others to safety."

"Safety? Where are we going?" Erica asks.

Sean looks up and smiles, wide and sharp. "District 13. We have work to do."

And he turns away, humming to himself. Erica mouths the words instinctively, even as Marilyn joins in. _Are you, are you coming to the tree? Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here_ _– No stranger would it be if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._


End file.
